Harnessing Primary and Secondary Plant Metabolite Information for Biotechnologically Derived Bioproducts

Dear Colleagues,

The production of plant-based bioproducts through biotechnology routes is becoming increasingly important to the biofuel, pharmaceutical, fiber, cosmetic, fragrance, food, and flavor industries. Most of these biochemical products are derived from primary and secondary plant metabolism, where the former provides energy and building blocks for the latter. Plant metabolism can be rewired by various genetic engineering approaches to improve bioproduct yield and adaptation to biotic and abiotic environmental stresses. Plant metabolic engineering, however, does not always produce the desired outcome, as the flow of biochemical information is multidirectional via complex interactions between the genome, proteome, transcriptome, and metabolome. In this regard, the analysis of the metabolome (i.e., metabolomics) plays a key role in the provision of metabolic information as it enables the correlation of gene expression to phenotypic (i.e., metabolite) information. Furthermore, metabolomics can be used to quantify and qualify plant bioproducts, identify bottlenecks in engineered pathways via the quantitation of pathway intermediates and cofactors, and assess the impact of an engineered pathway on plant metabolism and agronomical performance.

This Special Issue will highlight the use of primary and secondary plant metabolite information for biotechnologically derived bioproducts. Authors are invited to submit original articles and well-documented reviews related, but not limited, to the identification and/or quantitation of metabolites/bioactive compounds with biological and/or clinical relevance (possibly in relation to biotechnologically derived bioproducts) and metabolomics and descriptions of new plant-derived bioproducts and biomarkers of metabolism.

Dr. Edward Baidoo
Dr. Aymerick Eudes
Dr. Bashar Amer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Metabolites is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

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