Recent Advanced Metabolic and Genetic Engineering of Phenylpropanoid Biosynthetic Pathways

Abstract

The MYB transcription factors (TFs) are evolving as critical role in the regulation of the phenylpropanoid and tanshinones biosynthetic pathway. MYB TFs relate to a very important gene family, which are involved in the regulation of primary and secondary metabolisms, terpenoids, bioactive compounds, plant defense against various stresses and cell morphology. R2R3 MYB TFs contained a conserved N-terminal domain, but the domain at C-terminal sorts them different regarding their structures and functions. MYB TFs suppressors generally possess particular repressive motifs, such as pdLNLD/ELxiG/S and TLLLFR, which contribute to their suppression role through a diversity of complex regulatory mechanisms. A novel flower specific “NF/YWSV/MEDF/LW” conserved motif has a great potential to understand the mechanisms of flower development. In the current review, we summarize recent advanced progress of MYB TFs on transcription regulation, posttranscriptional, microRNA, conserved motif and propose directions to future prospective research. We further suggest there should be more focus on the investigation for the role of MYB TFs in microalgae, which has great potential for heterologous protein expression system for future perspectives.

The Involvement of microRNAs in Plant Lignan Biosynthesis—Current View

“…Phenylpropanoid metabolites biosynthesis is a complex network producing various important secondary metabolites, including lignans, and its regulatory mechanism is important for plant growth, development, and (a)biotic stress protection [ 1 ]. The most recent studies are focused on unraveling the miRNAs regulatory potential in the biosynthetic pathways of major secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, terpenoids, and flavonoids [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Lignans are polyphenolic compounds that are widely distributed in plant species.…”

“…MiRNA and transcription factors involved in the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis regulation with focus on lignin/lignans target biosynthesis (in italics), elaborated based on references[1][2][3][4]31,33,35,36,46,57,68,[94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103].…”

Towards a Cardoon (Cynara cardunculus var. altilis)-Based Biorefinery: A Case Study of Improved Cell Cultures via Genetic Modulation of the Phenylpropanoid Pathway

“…Given the challenges to single out an enzyme solely responsible of a complex metabolic flux (as for the phenylpropanoid pathway), the use of transcription factors (TFs) has revealed a successful approach to modify the biosynthesis of SMs [ 43 , 44 ]. As largely investigated, MYB-TFs, among their role in numerous physiological pathways, are responsible for the regulation of the biosynthesis of phenylpropanoids; in this regard, functional characterization approaches in different species indicated that MYBs acting as transcriptional repressors have more extensive effects than the corresponding MYB activators (recently reviewed by [ 48 ]).…”

Exogenous abscisic acid and sodium nitroprusside regulate flavonoid biosynthesis and photosynthesis of Nitraria tangutorum Bobr in alkali stress

“…Phenylalanine acts as the precursor molecule for flavonoid biosynthesis, which is transformed to cinnamic acid by phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) ( Anwar et al., 2019 ). A large number of studies have shown that PAL activity is significantly positively correlated with the accumulation of lignin, anthocyanins, and flavonoids play an important role in regulating the generation of secondary metabolites, maintaining normal plant growth and development, and improving plant resilience ( Anwar et al., 2021 ; Peng et al., 2022 ). It was found that the wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana could accumulate anthocyanins to resist the stress under UV-B stress, but the double mutant pal1-pal4 could not synthesize anthocyanins normally, resulting in greater growth inhibition of the stress than the wild-type ( Huang et al., 2010 ).In this study, alkali stress significantly up-regulated the PAL gene of phenylpropane, and SNP application did not increase its expression level and accumulation of flavonoids.…”