Tariq Aftab - Metabolic Engineering in Plants: Fundamentals and Applications

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Metabolic engineering is usually defined as the re-routing of one or more enzymatic reactions to generate new compounds, increase the production of existing compounds, or facilitate the degradation of compounds. Metabolic engineering is chiefly focused on metabolic intermediates or products, such as starch, vitamin E, amino acids, and enzymes. Metabolic engineering is different from genetic engineering because it investigates the properties of integrated metabolic pathways and genetic regulatory networks, not with individual genes and enzymes. Plants are the foundation of numerous compounds which are synthesized via assimilated complex biosynthetic routes. Plant metabolites are organic compounds synthesized via enzyme-mediated processes. These plant metabolites are important for both essential (proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates) as well as specific and specialized functions (anthocyanin, carotenoid, etc.). The primary metabolites are essential for the survival of the organisms and any alterations in their levels are likely to have severe major manifestations. However, secondary metabolites are considered to be the metabolites having specialized functions and playing a role in providing quality of life to the producer organism. Plants have evolved an incredible arrangement of metabolic pathways leading to molecules/compounds capable of responding promptly and effectively to stress situations imposed by biotic and abiotic factors, some of which supply the ever-growing needs of humankind for natural chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, agrochemicals, food and chemical additives, biofuels, and biomass. Humans rely on plants for various needs since ancient time, and their population still seems enough for fulfilling our demands. But, in foreseeable future we will be forced to think about the accessibility of resources for the generations to come. For these reasons, we must look for alternative options of resources about food/food supplement, medicines, and other essential items. For achieving this task, we are choosing plant metabolic engineering through which we can generate higher amount of compounds/products in less time and space. The aim of metabolic engineering is enhancement of desired product through upregulation /downregulation of protein expression. With an estimated 100,000 unique compounds produced in the plant kingdom, elucidating these metabolic networks is an exciting endeavour. By using plant metabolic engineering approach, tremendous changes at metabolic level in different plants have been done.

The book comprises 19 chapters, review articles written by experts, highlighting a wide range of topics such as whole-plant and cell/organ culture systems, and environmental and genetic transformation-based modulation of biochemical pathways. Special focus is given to microRNA, RNAi, and CRISPR-Cas-mediated approaches for metabolic engineering applications using both model and non-model plant species. We are hopeful that this volume would furnish the need of all researchers who are working or have interest in this particular field.

We are highly grateful to all our contributors, for accepting our invitation, and for not only sharing their knowledge and research, but also for venerably integrating their expertise in dispersed information from diverse fields in composing the chapters and enduring editorial suggestions to finally produce this venture. We also thank Springer Nature team for their generous cooperation at every stage of the book production.

Lastly, thanks are also due to well-wishers, research students, and editors family members for their moral support, blessings, and inspiration in the compilation of this book.