About this Research Topic
Plants can produce hundreds of thousands of structurally diverse special secondary metabolites – also known as "natural products" – that perform important biological functions. Meanwhile, specialized metabolites are also essential elements to the formation of characteristic traits of crops, such as color, odor, taste, nutritional and health values. With the increasing requirements of high-quality plant products, the understanding of the biosynthesis and regulation of plant secondary metabolism pathways is constantly being enhanced. In the last decade, a large amount of genomics information has been discovered in fruits, vegetables, ornamental plants and medicinal plants etc.; and functional characterizations of genes involved in the synthesis and regulation of specific secondary metabolites are also increasing rapidly. One step closer, bioengineering research (e.g. transgenic or genome editing technologies) on key genes has become an important means of increasing the value of crops.
The special issue intends to gather biochemical studies and molecular biology research focusing on the regulation of genetic enhancement of plant secondary metabolites. The main goal of the special issue is to point out innovative work and highlight the research progress and direction of the field, as this discipline is vast and undergoing continuous rapid expansion and new avenues are emerging. Some of the key research directions include: advances in omics-guided gene discovery, expression regulation, synthetic biology; comparative genomics and population genomics approaches in non-model plants; transgene, mutagenesis or genome editing approaches in plants.
This special issue may include (but is not limited to) original research reviews / original research in:
1. Transgenesis as a tool applied to the production of secondary metabolites or a group of related compounds
2. Metabolic engineering of the relevant biosynthetic pathways
3. Combinatorial biochemistry approach to engineer secondary metabolic pathways to offer new structures or design novel compounds
4. Metabolic perturbation and synthetic biology approaches
5. Enhancing synthesis of bioactive SMs by elicited transcriptional reprogramming
6. Comparative genomics or population genomics to unravel the genomic basis of secondary metabolism pathways
The special issue intends to gather biochemical studies and molecular biology research focusing on the regulation of genetic enhancement of plant secondary metabolites. The main goal of the special issue is to point out innovative work and highlight the research progress and direction of the field, as this discipline is vast and undergoing continuous rapid expansion and new avenues are emerging. Some of the key research directions include: advances in omics-guided gene discovery, expression regulation, synthetic biology; comparative genomics and population genomics approaches in non-model plants; transgene, mutagenesis or genome editing approaches in plants.
This special issue may include (but is not limited to) original research reviews / original research in:
1. Transgenesis as a tool applied to the production of secondary metabolites or a group of related compounds
2. Metabolic engineering of the relevant biosynthetic pathways
3. Combinatorial biochemistry approach to engineer secondary metabolic pathways to offer new structures or design novel compounds
4. Metabolic perturbation and synthetic biology approaches
5. Enhancing synthesis of bioactive SMs by elicited transcriptional reprogramming
6. Comparative genomics or population genomics to unravel the genomic basis of secondary metabolism pathways
Keywords: plant secondary metabolites, natural products, alkaloids, essential oils, terpenoids, genome editing, transgenic plants, transgenic cultures, genomics, transcription factors, RNAi mediated gene silencing, gene editing, epigenetics
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
