Plants are reservoirs of extreme chemical diversity, yet biosynthetic pathways remain underexplored in the majority of taxa. Access to improved, inexpensive genomic and computational technologies has recently enhanced our understanding of plant specialized metabolism at the biochemical and evolutionary levels including the elucidation of pathways leading to key metabolites. Furthermore, these approaches have provided insights into the mechanisms of chemical evolution, including neofunctionalization and subfunctionalization, structural variation, and modulation of gene expression. The broader utilization of genomic tools across the plant tree of life, and an expansion of genomic resources from multiple accessions within species or populations, will improve our overall understanding of chemodiversity. These data and knowledge will also lead to greater insight into the selective pressures contributing to and maintaining this diversity, which in turn will enable the development of more accurate predictive models of specialized metabolism in plants.

中文翻译：

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化学多样性进化中的基因和基因组重复：唇形科研究的视角。


植物是极端化学多样性的储存库，但大多数类群的生物合成途径仍未得到充分探索。最近，获得改进的、廉价的基因组和计算技术增强了我们对生化和进化水平上植物特化代谢的理解，包括阐明导致关键代谢物的途径。此外，这些方法提供了对化学进化机制的见解，包括新功能化和亚功能化、结构变异和基因表达的调节。在植物生命树中更广泛地利用基因组工具，以及从物种或种群内的多个种质中扩展基因组资源，将提高我们对化学多样性的整体理解。这些数据和知识还将有助于更深入地了解有助于和维持这种多样性的选择压力，从而能够开发出更准确的植物专门代谢预测模型。