Soledad Mora-Vásquez , Guillermo Gael Wells-Abascal , Claudia Espinosa-Leal , Guy A. Cardineau , Silverio García-Lara
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引用次数: 16
Abstract
Plants are a rich source of bioactive compounds, many of which have been exploited for cosmetic, nutritional, and medicinal purposes. Through the characterization of metabolic pathways, as well as the mechanisms responsible for the accumulation of secondary metabolites, researchers have been able to increase the production of bioactive compounds in different plant species for research and commercial applications. The intent of the current review is to describe the metabolic engineering methods that have been used to transform in vitro or field-grown medicinal plants over the last decade and to identify the most effective approaches to increase the production of alkaloids. The articles summarized were categorized into six groups: endogenous enzyme overexpression, foreign enzyme overexpression, transcription factor overexpression, gene silencing, genome editing, and co-overexpression. We conclude that, because of the complex and multi-step nature of biosynthetic pathways, the approach that has been most commonly used to increase the biosynthesis of alkaloids, and the most effective in terms of fold increase, is the co-overexpression of two or more rate-limiting enzymes followed by the manipulation of regulatory genes.
期刊介绍:
Metabolic Engineering Communications, a companion title to Metabolic Engineering (MBE), is devoted to publishing original research in the areas of metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, computational biology and systems biology for problems related to metabolism and the engineering of metabolism for the production of fuels, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. The journal will carry articles on the design, construction, and analysis of biological systems ranging from pathway components to biological complexes and genomes (including genomic, analytical and bioinformatics methods) in suitable host cells to allow them to produce novel compounds of industrial and medical interest. Demonstrations of regulatory designs and synthetic circuits that alter the performance of biochemical pathways and cellular processes will also be presented. Metabolic Engineering Communications complements MBE by publishing articles that are either shorter than those published in the full journal, or which describe key elements of larger metabolic engineering efforts.