Emerging technologies for the discovery of biosynthetic genes in plants

Covering 1982 to 2026Some of the most prominent natural products originate from plants. Discovering their biosynthetic genes has been a slow process. In contrast to microbial systems, co-expression analysis rather than genome mining has been the main strategy to elucidate biosynthetic pathways in plants. However, traditional co-expression analyses are limited in efficiency and often not as successful as desired. In this review, we describe emerging technologies to improve or replace traditional co-expression analyses, for example based on genome or protein data. Furthermore, we critically discuss the current state and impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning in the field. Our review will help to select the most efficient approaches for elucidation of biosynthetic pathways in plants for future work. Additionally, we highlight areas that require further methodological improvements to guide future research.