Watkins JL, Facchini PJ. Compartmentalization at the interface of primary and alkaloid metabolism.
Curr Opin Plant Biol 2022;
66:102186. [PMID:
35219143 DOI:
10.1016/j.pbi.2022.102186]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2021] [Revised: 12/17/2021] [Accepted: 01/11/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
Plants produce many compounds used by humans as medicines, including alkaloids of the benzylisoquinoline (BIA), monoterpene indole (MIA) and tropane classes. The biosynthetic pathways of these pharmaceutical alkaloids are complex and spatially segregated across several tissues, cell-types and organelles. This review discusses the origin of primary metabolic inputs required by these specialized biosynthetic pathways and considers aspects relevant to their spatial organization. These factors are important for alkaloid production both in the native plants and for synthetic biology pathway reconstruction in microorganisms.
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