Plant Metabolic Engineering for a Futuristic Economy

Chakrabartty, Ishani

doi:10.1007/978-981-16-7262-0_18

Ishani Chakrabartty ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0472-3540³

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Abstract

Metabolic engineering rearranges or redirects more than one enzymatic reaction to produce new variety of compounds for the overall improvement of the metabolic reactions occurring in an organism. Introduction and utilization of such processes in plants have witnessed tremendous technological advancements in plant molecular biology, breeding, transformation, protein targeting, etc. Starting from photosynthesis to pheromones, plants are involved in the synthesis of many beneficial metabolites. Dissection of different plant pathways for engineering of plant metabolism has yielded several successful reactions and has even led to a number of unanticipated results. It is indeed an exciting endeavor to decipher and alter the metabolic network of plants that involve more than 10,000 unique compounds! As such, the use of sustainable organisms like plants, may help to meet the challenges of food security and health of the growing human population. Successful engineering of plants, together with the use of systems and synthetic biology, results in the high yield of primary food sources and biofuel feedstocks, pharmaceuticals, and platform chemicals. Further, engineering of lesser-known biosynthesis pathways in plants and diversified process developments for production of platform chemicals are essential to overcome the hurdles for sustainable production of value-added biomolecules from plants. The present chapter focuses on the use of plant metabolic engineering as an effort to enhance the production of different biomolecules—starting from nutrients to pharmaceuticals—for a sustainable living. Such an attempt may hold the key for a paradigm shift towards a biobased economy.

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Department of Applied Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Science and Technology Megahalaya (USTM), Ri-Bhoi, Baridua, Meghalaya, India
Ishani Chakrabartty

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Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
Tariq Aftab
Department of Biological Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Faculty of Science, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Khalid Rehman Hakeem

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Chakrabartty, I. (2022). Plant Metabolic Engineering for a Futuristic Economy. In: Aftab, T., Hakeem, K.R. (eds) Metabolic Engineering in Plants. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7262-0_18

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7262-0_18
Published: 02 June 2022
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