Engineering secondary metabolite production in plants

Recent achievements have been made in the metabolic engineering of plant secondary metabolism. Various pathways have been altered using genes encoding biosynthetic enzymes or genes encoding regulatory proteins. In addition, antisense genes have been used to block competitive pathways, thereby increasing the flux towards the desired secondary metabolites. Unravelling plant secondary metabolism is the way to successful applications in molecular farming, health food, functional food, and plant resistance. Various pathways have been altered using genes encoding biosynthetic enzymes or regulatory proteins and show enormous potential for the genetic engineering of plant secondary metabolism.