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Introduction to the Different Classes of Biosynthetic Enzymes

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Plant-derived Natural Products

Abstract

Plant natural products are intimately associated with traits such as quality, yield, disease resistance, stress tolerance, color, and fragrance, in addition to being important dietary components and phytomedicines. In spite of the apparent complexity of natural product biosynthesis, much of the rich chemical diversity of the plant kingdom arises from a limited number of chemical scaffold types, modified by specific chemical substitutions such as hydroxylation, glycosylation, acylation, prenylation, and O-methylation. The molecular genetic basis underlying plant natural product chemistry has recently been the subject of concerted genomic and genetic approaches, facilitated by the fact that many of the key enzymatic steps in scaffold formation and substitution are catalyzed by proteins originating from recognizable gene families (e.g. polyketide synthase, glucosyltransferase) that have undergone significant expansion throughout plant evolution. This overview summarizes the types of enzymatic reactions involved in plant secondary metabolism from a pathway organization perspective that highlights the entry points from primary metabolism, general scaffold formation and scaffold modification (Box 1).

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  1. Plant Biology Division, Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK, 73401, USA

    Luzia V. Modolo, Angelika I. Reichert & Richard A. Dixon

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  1. Luzia V. Modolo
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  2. Angelika I. Reichert
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  3. Richard A. Dixon
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Correspondence to Richard A. Dixon .

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    © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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    Modolo, L.V., Reichert, A.I., Dixon, R.A. (2009). Introduction to the Different Classes of Biosynthetic Enzymes. In: Osbourn, A., Lanzotti, V. (eds) Plant-derived Natural Products. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-85498-4_6

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