De Novo Synthesis of Plant Natural Products in Yeast

Abstract

Plant natural products possess versatile biological activities including antiviral, anticancer and hepatoprotective activities, which are widely used in pharmaceutical and many other health-related fields. However, current production of such compounds relies on plant culture and extraction, which brings about severe concerns for environmental, ecological and amount of agricultural lands used. With the increasing awareness of environmental sustainability and shortage of lands, yeasts are engineered to produce natural products, for its inherent advantages such as the robustness, safety and sufficient supply of precursors. This chapter focused on the recent progress of yeast as a platform for the biosynthesis of plant natural products.