Leveraging yeast to characterize plant biosynthetic gene clusters

Plant biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) contain multiple physically clustered non-homologous genes that encode enzymes catalyzing diverse reactions in one plant natural product biosynthetic pathway. A growing number of plant BGCs have emerged as an underlying resource for understanding plant specialized metabolism and evolution, but the characterization remains challenging. Recent studies have demonstrated that baker's yeast can serve as a versatile platform for the characterization of plant BGCs, from single-gene characterization to multiple genes and hitherto unknown putative BGC validation and elucidation. In this review, we will summarize the strategies and examples of the applications of yeast in plant BGC characterization and share our perspective on the development of a systematic pipeline to fully leverage yeast to advance the understanding of plant BGCs and plant natural product biomanufacturing.