Prospects and progress on crocin biosynthetic pathway and metabolic engineering

Taoli Liu; Suize Yu; Zhichao Xu; Jiantao Tan; Bin Wang; Yao-Guang Liu; Qinlong Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.csbj.2020.10.019

Prospects and progress on crocin biosynthetic pathway and metabolic engineering

Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2020 Oct 29:18:3278-3286. doi: 10.1016/j.csbj.2020.10.019. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Taoli Liu^{1

2}, Suize Yu^{1

2}, Zhichao Xu³, Jiantao Tan^{1

2}, Bin Wang^{1

2}, Yao-Guang Liu^{1

2}, Qinlong Zhu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro-Bioresources, College of Life Sciences, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China.
² Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Guangzhou 510642, China.
³ Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100193, China.

Abstract

Crocins are a group of highly valuable apocarotenoid-derived pigments mainly produced in Crocus sativus stigmas and Gardenia jasminoides fruits, which display great pharmacological activities for human health, such as anticancer, reducing the risk of atherosclerosis, and preventing Alzheimer's disease. However, traditional sources of crocins are no longer sufficient to meet current demands. The recent clarification of the crocin biosynthetic pathway opens up the possibility of large-scale production of crocins by synthetic metabolic engineering methods. In this review, we mainly introduce the crocin biosynthetic pathway, subcellular route, related key enzymes, and its synthetic metabolic engineering, as well as its challenges and prospects, with a view to providing useful references for further studies on the synthetic metabolic engineering of crocins.

Keywords: Apocarotenoid; Biosynthesic pathway; Crocetin; Crocins; Metabolic engineering; Synthetic biology; UDP-glycosyltransferase.

Publication types

Review