title: Paclitaxel: biosynthesis, production and future prospects.
abstract: Plants are capable of producing a wide variety of secondary metabolites which have a diverse range of functions that can be exploited for medicinal purposes; for example, paclitaxel is a major anti-cancer drug found in the bark of Taxus spp. There are however supply issues as the compound is only found at low concentrations (0.05%) within the plant. The complex paclitaxel biosynthetic pathway makes chemical synthesis non-commercially viable; therefore alternative biotechnological sources have been explored for production including heterologous expression systems and plant cell culture.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Howat
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK; Unhwa Corp., Wooah-Dong, Dukjin-gu, Jeonju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Bora
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Unhwa Corp., Wooah-Dong, Dukjin-gu, Jeonju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Il Suk
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Oh
authors.affiliation: Unhwa Corp., Wooah-Dong, Dukjin-gu, Jeonju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Woo
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.affiliation: Unhwa Corp., Wooah-Dong, Dukjin-gu, Jeonju, South Korea.
authors.forename: Eun-Kyong
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Plant Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Edinburgh EH9 3JR, UK. Electronic address: gloake@ed.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Gary J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Loake
mesh_terms: D053898:Biosynthetic Pathways; D006801:Humans; D017239:Paclitaxel / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D017239:Paclitaxel