Perspective on Industrial Application of Specialized Metabolites in the Genomic Era

Abstract

Plant secondary metabolites (specialized metabolites) have been used for natural pigments, spices, sweeteners, and medicines over a long human history. Along with recent developments of analytical instruments, our scientific knowledge of their structures, biosyntheses, and biological activities has been enlarged dramatically. Based on biological information, we have improved crops with different strategies e.g., classical breeding, mutation, transformation, and genomic selection. Here I show advanced examples of novel gene hunting by next generation sequencer (NGS) in the genomics era and metabolic engineering of useful plant metabolites on yeast platform with high productivity, leading to innovations in crop breeding and production systems for valuable compounds.