Rerouting plant terpene biosynthesis enables momilactone pathway elucidation.

ABSTRACT: Momilactones from rice have allelopathic activity, the ability to inhibit growth of competing plants. Transferring momilactone production to other crops is a potential approach to combat weeds, yet a complete momilactone biosynthetic pathway remains elusive. Here, we address this challenge through rapid gene screening in Nicotiana benthamiana, a heterologous plant host. This required us to solve a central problem: diminishing intermediate and product yields remain a bottleneck for multistep diterpene pathways. We increased intermediate and product titers by rerouting diterpene biosynthesis from the chloroplast to the cytosolic, high-flux mevalonate pathway. This enabled the discovery and reconstitution of a complete route to momilactones (>10-fold yield improvement in production versus ric

SUBMITTER: De La Pena R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7990393 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature