Plant-derived aromatic natural products have important medicinal value and can be made into pharmaceutical and healthcare products with antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-oxidative, insecticidal and anthelmintic, expectorant and cough suppressant, tranquilizer and antitumor effects. However, the low content of aromatic natural products in plants and the difficulty and high costs in extraction and purification hampered its large-scale production and application. Recent advances in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering have enabled the tailor-made production of aromatic natural products using engineered microbial cell factories. This review summarizes the categories, the synthetic pathways, the key enzymes and the synthetic biology strategies for production of aromatic natural products, and discusses the challenges and opportunities in this area.
植物芳香类天然产物具有重要的药用价值，可制成具有抗菌、抗炎、镇痛、抗氧化、杀虫驱虫、祛痰止咳、安神镇静和抗肿瘤等药效的医药保健用品。然而，由于植物中芳香类天然产物含量较低并且难以提取和纯化，严重限制了其工业化生产及应用。合成生物学和代谢工程技术的发展为天然产物的生产提供了新的思路，可以利用人工微生物细胞工厂来实现多种芳香类天然产物的高效合成。文中介绍了芳香类天然产物的种类、合成途径和关键酶，综述了近年来国内外通过合成生物学技术合成芳香类天然产物的研究进展，探讨了当前研究所面临的挑战及潜在的解决策略，以期对芳香类天然产物生物合成研究工作提供参考。.
Keywords: aromatic natural products; metabolic engineering; shikimate pathway; synthetic biology.