Specialized metabolites serve as a chemical arsenal that protects plants from abiotic stress, pathogens, and herbivores, and they are an essential component of our nutrition and medicine. Despite their importance, we are still at the beginning of unravelling biosynthetic pathways that produce these compounds, which is needed to produce more resilient and nutritious crops, expand our inventory of useful biomolecules, and give valuable insights into plant evolution. This review focuses on the evolution of specialized metabolism in the plant kingdom and the state-of-the-art approaches used to identify the biosynthetic pathways of these useful compounds.

中文翻译：

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解开专门代谢途径和进化的计算方法。

专门的代谢产物可作为化学武库，保护植物免受非生物胁迫，病原体和食草动物的侵害，它们是我们营养和医学的重要组成部分。尽管它们具有重要意义，但我们仍处于探索产生这些化合物的生物合成途径的开始，这是生产更具弹性和营养的作物，扩大我们的有用生物分子库存以及对植物进化提供有价值的见识所必需的。这篇综述着重于植物界中专门代谢的演变以及用于鉴定这些有用化合物的生物合成途径的最新技术。