Plants produce a huge diversity of specialized metabolites (SM) throughout their life cycle that play important physiological and ecological functions. SM can protect plants and seeds against diseases, predators, and abiotic stresses, or support their interactions with beneficial or symbiotic organisms. They also have strong impacts on human nutrition and health. Despite this importance, the biosynthesis and biological functions of most of the SM remain elusive and their diversity and/or quantity have been reduced in most crops during domestication. Seeds present a large number of SM that are important for their physiological, agronomic, nutritional or industrial qualities and hence, provide interesting models for both studying biosynthesis and producing large amounts of specialized metabolites. For instance, phenolics are abundant and widely distributed in seeds. More specifically, flavonoid pathway has been instrumental for understanding environmental or developmental regulations of specialized metabolic pathways, at the molecular and cellular levels. Here, we summarize current knowledge on seed phenolics as model, and discuss how recent progresses in omics approaches could help to further characterize their diversity, regulations, and the underlying molecular mechanisms involved.

中文翻译：

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种子中的特殊酚类化合物：结构、功能和规则

植物在其整个生命周期中会产生种类繁多的特化代谢物 (SM)，这些代谢物具有重要的生理和生态功能。SM 可以保护植物和种子免受疾病、捕食者和非生物胁迫，或支持它们与有益或共生生物的相互作用。它们还对人类营养和健康产生重大影响。尽管如此重要，但大多数 SM 的生物合成和生物学功能仍然难以捉摸，而且在驯化过程中，大多数作物的多样性和/或数量已经减少。种子呈现出大量对其生理、农艺、营养或工业品质很重要的 SM，因此，为研究生物合成和生产大量特化代谢物提供了有趣的模型。例如，酚类物质丰富且广泛分布于种子中。更具体地说，类黄酮途径有助于在分子和细胞水平上理解专门代谢途径的环境或发育规律。在这里，我们总结了种子酚类作为模型的当前知识，并讨论了组学方法的最新进展如何有助于进一步表征其多样性、规则和所涉及的潜在分子机制。