Diversifying carotenoid biosynthetic pathways by directed evolution.

ABSTRACT: Microorganisms and plants synthesize a diverse array of natural products, many of which have proven indispensable to human health and well-being. Although many thousands of these have been characterized, the space of possible natural products--those that could be made biosynthetically--remains largely unexplored. For decades, this space has largely been the domain of chemists, who have synthesized scores of natural product analogs and have found many with improved or novel functions. New natural products have also been made in recombinant organisms, via engineered biosynthetic pathways. Recently, methods inspired by natural evolution have begun to be applied to the search for new natural products. These methods force pathways to evolve in convenient laboratory organisms, where the products

SUBMITTER: Umeno D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1082795 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature