Metabolic Engineering of Chemical Defence Pathways in Plant Disease Control

Frederik Rook

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Plants produce a wide variety of specialized (or secondary) metabolites that function as chemical defence compounds and provide protection against microbial pathogens or herbivores. This chapter focuses on the metabolic engineering of biosynthetic pathways for plant chemical defence compounds with antimicrobial properties for use in crop protection. It presents an overview of the metabolic engineering efforts made in the area of plant chemical defence. For in-depth information on the characteristics of a specific class of chemical defence compounds, the reader is referred to the specialized reviews on each topic. The chapter reviews the some of the scientific and technical challenges in metabolic engineering and the new possibilities emerging from recent technological developments. It concludes by discussing the outlook for bioengineered chemical defences as part of crop protection strategies, also taking into account issues of commercial viability and the socio-political context.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPlant Pathogen Resistance Biotechnology
EditorsDavid B. Collinge
Number of pages19
PublisherWiley-Blackwell
Publication date2016
Pages71-89
Chapter4
ISBN (Print)9781118867761
ISBN (Electronic)9781118867716
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

Keywords

  • Biosynthetic gene clusters
  • Chemical defence compounds
  • Chemical defence pathways
  • Gene expression
  • Metabolic engineering
  • Pathogen resistance
  • Plant disease control

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