Plant, Cellular and Molecular Biology

Plant metabolic engineering:

Metabolic engineering defined as ‘‘the improvement of cellular activities by manipulation of enzymatic, transport, and regulatory functions of the cell with the use of recombinant DNA technologies.’’ Today, the availability of the complete genome sequence for several plants, together with the development of powerful techniques for the transformation and stable or transient expression of genes in plants brings plant metabolic engineering as a strong alternative to classical chemical synthesis for the production of pharmaceuticals and other important industrial compounds. Plant metabolic engineering involves the manipulation of existing metabolic pathways by either increasing or diverting flux to desire or from undesired products, respectively, or the generation of chemical entities not normally found in the plant production system through the introduction of genes from other organisms. Essential elements in the toolbox of the metabolic engineer are mechanisms to eliminate or overexpress gene activity.