Making small molecules in plants: A chassis for synthetic biology-based production of plant natural products.

Plant natural products have been extensively exploited in food, medicine, flavor, cosmetic, renewable fuel and other industrial sectors. Synthetic biology has recently emerged as a promising means for cost-effective and sustainable production of natural products. Comparing to engineering microbes for the production of plant natural products, the potential of plants as chassis for producing these compounds is underestimated largely due to challenges encountered in engineering plants. Knowledge in plant engineering is instrumental for enabling the effective and efficient production of valuable phytochemicals in plants, which also paves ways for a more sustainable future agriculture. In this manuscript, we briefly recap the biosynthesis of plant natural products, focusing primarily on industrially important terpenoids, alkaloids and phenylpropanoids. We further summarize the plant hosts and strategies that have been employed to engineer the production of natural products. The challenges and opportunities of using plant synthetic biology to achieve rapid and scalable production of high-value plant natural products are also discussed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.