title: Metabolic engineering of artemisinin biosynthesis in Artemisia annua L.
abstract: Artemisinin, a sesquiterpene lactone isolated from the Chinese medicinal plant Artemisia annua L., is an effective antimalarial agent, especially for multi-drug resistant and cerebral malaria. To date, A. annua is still the only commercial source of artemisinin. The low concentration of artemisinin in A. annua, ranging from 0.01 to 0.8% of the plant dry weight, makes artemisinin relatively expensive and difficult to meet the demand of over 100 million courses of artemisinin-based combinational therapies per year. Since the chemical synthesis of artemisinin is not commercially feasible at present, another promising approach to reduce the price of artemisinin-based antimalarial drugs is metabolic engineering of the plant to obtain a higher content of artemisinin in transgenic plants. In the past decade, we have established an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation system of A. annua, and have successfully transferred a number of genes related to artemisinin biosynthesis into the plant. The various aspects of these efforts are discussed in this review.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Photosynthesis and Environmental Molecular Physiology, Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanxincun 20, Haidian District, Beijing, 100093, China.
authors.forename: Benye
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Zhigao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Guofeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Hechun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ye
mesh_terms: D060054:Agrobacterium / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D000962:Antimalarials / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*; D031172:Artemisia annua / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D037621:Artemisinins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism*; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D003368:Gossypium / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000737:chemistry / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D014170:Transformation, Genetic
chemical_list: D000962:Antimalarials; D037621:Artemisinins; C031327:artemisinin