The ease and complexity of identifying and using specialized metabolites for crop engineering

Plants produce a broad variety of specialized metabolites with distinct biological activities and potential applications. Despite this potential, most biosynthetic pathways governing specialized metabolite production remain largely unresolved across the plant kingdom. The rapid advancement of genetics and biochemical tools has enhanced our ability to identify plant specialized metabolic pathways. Further advancements in transgenic technology and synthetic biology approaches have extended this to a desire to design new pathways or move existing pathways into new systems to address long-running difficulties in crop systems. This includes improving abiotic and biotic stress resistance, boosting nutritional content, etc. In this review, we assess the potential and limitations for (1) identifying specialized metabolic pathways in plants with multi-omics tools and (2) using these enzymes in synthetic biology or crop engineering. The goal of these topics is to highlight areas of research that may need further investment to enhance the successful application of synthetic biology for exploiting the myriad of specialized metabolic pathways.