Discovery, Function, and Innovation in Plant Specialized Metabolism

This Research Topic has been developed in collaboration with the Phytochemical Society of North America.

Plants produce a vast repertoire of specialized metabolites that enable them to adapt to their environments, defend against biotic and abiotic stressors, and engage in complex ecological interactions such as pollinator attraction and allelopathy. Specifically, the potential of these metabolites for improving human and livestock health has drawn significant attention, driving innovation in the field of phytochemistry. Specialized metabolites are often species-specific, tightly regulated, and shaped by a plant’s evolutionary history and ecological niche. With advances in technology, the field has expanded rapidly from model systems to a broad range of non-model species across the plant kingdom. Many of these species harbor novel compounds with unknown functions that may be valuable for crop resilience, ecological studies, or therapeutic applications. The discovery of such metabolites, along with the genes and pathways that govern their biosynthesis, continues to expand with the integration of high-throughput omics, genome mining, network analysis, and increasingly, machine learning-assisted prediction strategies.

This Research Topic seeks to capture the next generation of plant specialized metabolism research, integrating compound discovery with functional characterization and translational innovation. We aim to highlight studies that: Identify novel plant natural compounds and their biosynthetic genes; Explore the synthesis and discovery of new-to-nature compounds using plant enzymes and synthetic biology tools; Utilize genomic, transcriptomic, metabolomic, and proteomic approaches—at either the single-cell or whole-plant level—to uncover and functionally characterize specialized metabolite pathways; Present novel synthetic biology strategies for engineering or integrating plant metabolite pathways into microbial hosts.

Specific themes of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Discovery and characterization of new specialized metabolite biosynthetic pathways in plants using next-generation omics, machine learning, or AI tools.
- Structural diversification and decoration of plant metabolites through enzymatic modifications, in silico design, and functional studies
- Metabolic engineering of specialized metabolite pathways in plants and heterologous systems through synthetic biology tools.
- Evolution and diversification of plant chemo-diversity across diverse lineages (e.g., angiosperms, gymnosperms, bryophytes, ferns) to understand their ecological and evolutionary significance.