Production of useful secondary metabolites in plants : functional genomics approaches

Abstract

The paradigm of biological research has been changed by recent developments in genomics, high-throughput biology, and bioinformatics. Conventional biology often was based on empirical, labor-intensive, and time-consuming methods. In the new paradigm, biological research e is driven by a holistic approach on the basis of rational, automatic, and high-throughput methods. New functional compounds can be discovered by using high-throughput screening systems. Secondary metabolite pathways and the genes involved in those pathways are then determined by studying functional genomics in conjunction with the data-mining tools of bioinformatics. In addition, these advances in metabolic engineering enable researchers to confer new secondary metabolic pathways to crops by transferring three to five, or more, heterologous genes taken from various other species. In the future, engineering for the production of useful compounds will be designed by a set of software tools that allows the user to specify a cell’s genes, proteins, and other molecules, as well as their individual interactions.