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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

A Customizable Approach for the Enzymatic Production and Purification of Diterpenoid Natural Products
Published on: October 4, 2019
Unusual P450 reactions in plant secondary metabolism
Masaharu Mizutani1, Fumihiko Sato
1Functional Phytochemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan. mizutani@gold.kobe-u.ac.jp
Abstract:
Plant cytochromes P450 (P450s) participate in a variety of biochemical pathways to produce a vast diversity of plant natural products. The number of P450 genes in plant genomes is estimated to be up to 1% of the total gene annotations of each plant species, implying that plants are huge sources for various P450-dependent reactions. Plant P450s catalyze a wide variety of monooxygenation/hydroxylation reactions in secondary metabolism, and some of them are involved in unusual reactions such as methylenedioxy-bridge formation, phenol coupling reactions, oxidative rearrangement of carbon skeletons, and oxidative C-C bond cleavage. Here, we summarize unusual P450 reactions in various plant secondary metabolisms, and describe their proposed reaction mechanisms.
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