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Updated: May 15, 2026

A Customizable Approach for the Enzymatic Production and Purification of Diterpenoid Natural Products
Published on: October 4, 2019
Making new molecules--evolution of structures for novel metabolites in plants
1Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. kliebenstein@ucdavis.edu
Abstract:
Secondary metabolites are essential plant fitness within the natural environment by providing defense against attacking and competing organisms including bacteria, fungi, insects, animals and other plants. These compounds' defensive function is frequently intertwined with specific accumulation in novel developmental structures. While, the biochemical community is making great strides in identifying the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that allow these chemicals to be synthesized there is vastly less progress on understanding the developmental mechanisms that is equally key to their defensive function. In this review, I briefly delve into several novel developmental structures and provide evolutionary hypothesis for how they may have evolved and how they could be unique systems for studying key developmental processes that have heretofore been recalcitrant to study.
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