Discovery of catalytic tools for isoprenoid production

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The isoprenoids are a large and structurally diverse class of natural products with more than 55,000 known compounds. Many isoprenoids have been used as flavors, pharmaceuticals, and industrial polymers. All isoprenoids are currently supplied either by purification from plants or by chemical synthesis involving petrochemicals. However, the yield from natural sources is often inadequate to meet industrial demands, and chemical synthesis is not desirable due to environmental perturbation. To overcome these, the enzymatic production of isoprenoids using biological systems has become an attractive alternative to the traditional purification and chemical synthesis; however, our current knowledge of isoprenoid metabolism remains insufficient to realize the biological supply of isoprenoids.