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Emerging mechanistic insights into the regulation of specialized metabolism in plants

Nature Plants volume 9, pages 22–30 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plants biosynthesize a broad range of natural products through specialized and species-specific metabolic pathways that are fuelled by core metabolism, together forming a metabolic network. Specialized metabolites have important roles in development and adaptation to external cues, and they also have invaluable pharmacological properties. A growing body of evidence has highlighted the impact of translational, transcriptional, epigenetic and chromatin-based regulation and evolution of specialized metabolism genes and metabolic networks. Here we review the forefront of this research field and extrapolate to medicinal plants that synthetize rare molecules. We also discuss how this new knowledge could help in improving strategies to produce useful plant-derived pharmaceuticals.

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Fig. 1: Mechanisms of specialized metabolism gene regulation and evolution.
Fig. 2: Chromatin architecture regulates thalianol accumulation in Arabidopsis roots.
Fig. 3: Transcriptional repressor decoying and promoter swapping for BGC activation.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the ANR MIACYC project (grant no. ANR-20-CE43-0010), the ARD CVL Biopharmaceutical programme of the Région Centre-Val de Loire (ETOPOCentre project) and Le Studium Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies (consortium fellowship). A.O. acknowledges funding from the John Innes Foundation and the BBSRC Institute Strategic Programme Grant ‘Molecules from Nature—Products and Pathways’ (grant no. BBS/E/J/000PR9790). H.-W.N. acknowledges support from the University of Bath and the Royal Society (grant no. UF160138).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EA2106 Biomolécules et Biotechnologies Végétales, Université de Tours, Tours, France

    Louis-Valentin Méteignier & Vincent Courdavault

  2. The Milner Centre for Evolution, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Hans-Wilhelm Nützmann

  3. IRF, SFR ICAT, Université Angers and Université de Bretagne-Occidentale, Angers, France

    Nicolas Papon

  4. Department of Biochemistry and Metabolism, John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK

    Anne Osbourn

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  1. Louis-Valentin Méteignier
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L.-V.M., H.-W.N., N.P., A.O. and V.C. conceived the project and wrote the article.

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Correspondence to Anne Osbourn or Vincent Courdavault.

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Méteignier, LV., Nützmann, HW., Papon, N. et al. Emerging mechanistic insights into the regulation of specialized metabolism in plants. Nat. Plants 9, 22–30 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01288-7

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