Recent Advances in the Recombinant Biosynthesis of Polyphenols

Plants are the source of various natural compounds with pharmaceutical and nutraceutical importance which have shown numerous health benefits with relatively fewer side effects. However, extraction of these compounds from native producers cannot meet the ever-increasing demands of the growing population due to, among other things, the limited production of the active compound(s). Their production depends upon the metabolic demands of the plant and is also subjected to environmental conditions, abundance of crop species and seasonal variations. Moreover, their extraction from plants requires complex downstream processing and can also lead to the extinction of many useful plant varieties. Microbial engineering is one of the alternative approaches which can meet the global demand for natural products in an eco-friendly manner. Metabolic engineering of microbes or pathway reconstruction using synthetic biology tools and novel enzymes lead to the generation of a diversity of compounds (like flavonoids, stilbenes, anthocyanins etc.) and their natural and non-natural derivatives. Strain and pathway optimization, pathway regulation and tolerance engineering have produced microbial cell factories into which the metabolic pathway of plants can be introduced for the production of compounds of interest on an industrial scale in an economical and eco-friendly way. While microbial production of phytochemicals needs to further increase product titer if it is ever to become a commercial success. The present review covers the advancements made for the improvement of microbial cell factories in order to increase the product titer of recombinant polyphenolic compounds.