Microorganisms as platform for production of bioactive compounds

Phenylpropanoids and derived flavonoids are natural plant products presenting many positive effects on human health. Besides that, they are important compounds regarding several plant physiological aspects. The biosynthetic pathway is composed of several enzymatic steps and is object of many on-going studies on metabolic engineering. In this context, the heterologous expression in microbes and combinatorial biosynthesis are interesting tools to increase production yields of these plant secondary metabolites. In this project the main goal was to establish a production platform for phloridzin, a bioactive compound found in apple trees, by reconstruction of phenylpropanoid/chalcone pathway as a modular system in a single E. coli cell.