ArticleThe Plant cell2011
Elucidation of the pathway to astaxanthin in the flowers of Adonis aestivalis.
Article in The Plant cell, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed, 125 citations in OpenAlex.
- Harnessing synthetic biology for tetraterpenoid astaxanthin production: Recent advances and challenges.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2026Review
- Metabolically engineered plant cell cultures as biofactories for the production of high-value carotenoids astaxanthin and canthaxanthin.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Oilseed-based metabolic engineering of astaxanthin and related ketocarotenoids using a plant-derived pathway: Lab-to-field-to-application.Plant biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- Transcontinental patterns in floral pigment abundance among animal-pollinated species.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Multi-Omics Analysis Provides Insights into a Mosaic-Leaf Phenotype of Astaxanthin-Producing Tobacco.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Unveiling astaxanthin: biotechnological advances, delivery systems and versatile applications in nutraceuticals and cosmetics.Archives of microbiology · 2025Review
- Effects of high light exposure and heterologous expression of β-carotene ketolase on the metabolism of carotenoids inFrontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2025Article
- Combinatorial biosynthesis for the engineering of novel fungal natural products.Communications chemistry · 2024Review
- Heterologous Production in theAntioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Astaxanthin: Past, Present, and Future.Marine drugs · 2023Review
- Production of Astaxanthin Using CBFD1/HFBD1 fromBioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Expression inheritance and constraints on cis- and trans-regulatory mutations underlying lotus color variation.Plant physiology · 2023Article
- Exogenous Arachidonic Acid Affects Fucoxanthin Biosynthesis and Photoprotection inMarine drugs · 2022Article
- Engineering an oilseed crop for hyper-accumulation of carotenoids in the seeds without using a traditional marker gene.Plant cell reports · 2022Article
- Optimization of microbial cell factories for astaxanthin production: Biosynthesis and regulations, engineering strategies and fermentation optimization strategies.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2022Review
- Metabolic engineering of astaxanthin-rich maize and its use in the production of biofortified eggs.Plant biotechnology journal · 2021Article
- Article
- Engineering a Plant-Derived Astaxanthin Synthetic Pathway IntoFrontiers in plant science · 2021Article
- Diversity and Evolution of Carotenoid Biosynthesis from Prokaryotes to Plants.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2021Review
- Canthaxanthin, a Red-Hot Carotenoid: Applications, Synthesis, and Biosynthetic Evolution.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A few species in the genus Adonis are the only land plants known to produce the valuable red ketocarotenoid astaxanthin in abundance. Here, we ascertain the pathway that leads from the β-rings of β-carotene, a carotenoid ubiquitous in plants, to the 3-hydroxy-4-keto-β-rings of astaxanthin (3,3'-dihydroxy-β,β-carotene-4,4'-dione) in the blood-red flowers of Adonis aestivalis, an ornamental and medicinal plant commonly known as summer pheasant's eye. Two gene products were found to catalyze three distinct reactions, with the first and third reactions of the pathway catalyzed by the same enzyme. The pathway commences with the activation of the number 4 carbon of a β-ring in a reaction catalyzed by a carotenoid β-ring 4-dehydrogenase (CBFD), continues with the further dehydrogenation of this carbon to yield a carbonyl in a reaction catalyzed by a carotenoid 4-hydroxy-β-ring 4-dehydrogenase, and concludes with the addition of an hydroxyl group at the number 3 carbon in a reaction catalyzed by the erstwhile CBFD enzyme. The A. aestivalis pathway is both portable and robust, functioning efficiently in a simple bacterial host. Our elucidation of the pathway to astaxanthin in A. aestivalis provides enabling technology for development of a biological production process and reveals the evolutionary origin of this unusual plant pathway, one unrelated to and distinctly different from those used by bacteria, green algae, and fungi to synthesize astaxanthin.
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