Beyond natural: synthetic expansions of botanical form and function

Abstract

Summary Powered by developments that enabled genome‐scale investigations, systems biology emerged as a field aiming to understand how phenotypes emerge from network functions. These advances fuelled a new engineering discipline focussed on synthetic reconstructions of complex biological systems with the goal of predictable rational design and control. Initially, progress in the nascent field of synthetic biology was slow due to the ad hoc nature of molecular biology methods such as cloning. The application of engineering principles such as standardisation, together with several key technical advances, enabled a revolution in the speed and accuracy of genetic manipulation. Combined with mathematical and statistical modelling, this has improved the predictability of engineering biological systems of which nonlinearity and stochasticity are intrinsic features leading to remarkable achievements in biotechnology as well as novel insights into biological function. In the past decade, there has been slow but steady progress in establishing foundations for synthetic biology in plant systems. Recently, this has enabled model‐informed rational design to be successfully applied to the engineering of plant gene regulation and metabolism. Synthetic biology is now poised to transform the potential of plant biotechnology. However, reaching full potential will require conscious adjustments to the skillsets and mind sets of plant scientists.

Natural Products from Bryophytes: From Basic Biology to Biotechnological Applications

“…It has also been shown that using contemporary synthetic biological parts is also possible in bryophytes (Peramuna et al, 2018). The use of mosses and liverworts has recently been reviewed in several papers (Ishizaki et al, 2016;Yongabi Anchang and Simonsen, 2019;Decker and Reski, 2020;Patron, 2020).…”

RNA Viral Vectors for Accelerating Plant Synthetic Biology

“…Secondly, by engineering previously characterized biological components into novel configurations with predicted behaviors, such as the creation of genetic circuits ( Sprinzak and Elowitz, 2005 ; Antunes et al, 2006 , 2011 ; Khakhar et al, 2018 ), we can test and refine our understanding of these components and the broader cellular and organismal context they operate in. These two approaches have led to some major breakthroughs in understanding microbial ( Sprinzak and Elowitz, 2005 ) and mammalian biology ( Mathur et al, 2017 ) and can be applied to diverse biological systems, including plants ( Patron, 2020 ).…”

Reconstitution of monoterpene indole alkaloid biosynthesis in genome engineered Nicotiana benthamiana

“…The application of synthetic biology approaches to engineering plant systems has facilitated advances in the control and expression of biosynthetic pathways, enabling plants as an alternative production chassis (Patron 2020;Stephenson et al 2020). A relative of tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana (Bally et al 2018;Goodin et al 2008) has emerged as a favoured species for plantbased production of pharmaceutical proteins (Lomonossoff and D'Aoust 2016) and metabolic pathway reconstitution (Stephenson et al 2020).…”