Tandem gene duplications drive divergent evolution of caffeine and crocin biosynthetic pathways in plants

• Main Authors: Xu, Zhichao, Pu, Xiangdong, Gao, Ranran, Demurtas, Olivia Costantina, Fleck, Steven J., Richter, Michaela, He, Chunnian, Ji, Aijia, Sun, Wei, Kong, Jianqiang, Hu, Kaizhi, Ren, Fengming, Song, Jiejie, Wang, Zhe, Gao, Ting, Xiong, Chao, Yu, Haoying, Xin, Tianyi, Albert, Victor A., Giuliano, Giovanni, Chen, Shilin, Song, Jingyuan
• Other Authors: School of Biological Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Science::Biological sciences; Crocin Biosynthesis; Caffeine Biosynthesis
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146587
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Background: Plants have evolved a panoply of specialized metabolites that increase their environmental fitness. Two examples are caffeine, a purine psychotropic alkaloid, and crocins, a group of glycosylated apocarotenoid pigments. Both classes of compounds are found in a handful of distantly relate...