Gene Clusters from Plants to Microbes: Their Role in Specialized Metabolism and Drug Development

Most of the drugs we use as anticancer agents, antiinfective agents, heart protective and antidiabetic are secondary metabolites of plants or microbes or derived from natural products. Plant or microbe genomics research and their gene clusters can find many unknown enzymes/new metabolic pathways [1,2] and thus it is believed that this field of research has far greater potential to produce specialized metabolites than was thought from classic bioactivity screens. Genomic research of fruit plants, crops, medicinal plants give information's about gene clusters which helps to identify gene-metabolite linkage. These important metabolites are used as either plant defense or as medicines for human use.