Metabolic Engineering for Alkaloid Biosynthesis
Metabolic engineering has also been shown to help increase productivity of several secondary metabolites in plants. Among biologically active alkaloids, nicotine and tropane alkaloids including hyoscyamine (atropine) and scopolamine (Hyoscine) have proved useful in pharmaceutical industry. Several genes involved in their biosynthesis have been cloned, making it possible to use metabolic engineering to improve their biosynthesis have been cloned, making it possible to use metabolic engineering to improve their productivity. The biosynthetic pathways of tropane alkaloids and nicotine are shown in.


