UDP-glycosyltransferase (UGT)-mediated glycosylation is a widespread modification of plant natural products (PNPs), which exhibit a wide range of bioactivities, and are of great pharmaceutical, ecological and agricultural significance. However, functional annotation is available for less than 2% of the family 1 UGTs, which currently has 20,000 members that are known to glycosylate several classes of PNPs. This low percentage illustrates the difficulty of experimental study and accurate prediction of their function. Here, a synthetic biology platform for elucidating the UGT-mediated glycosylation process of PNPs was established, including glycosyltransferases dependent on UDP-glucose and UDP-xylose. This platform is based on reconstructing the specific PNPs biosynthetic pathways in dedicated microbial yeast chassis by the simple method of plug-and-play. Five UGT enzymes were identified as responsible for the biosynthesis of the main glycosylation products of triterpenes in Panax notoginseng, including a novel UDP-xylose dependent glycosyltransferase enzyme for notoginsenoside R1 biosynthesis. Additionally, we constructed a yeast cell factory that yields >1 g/L of ginsenoside compound K. This platform for functional gene identification and strain engineering can serve as the basis for creating alternative sources of important natural products and thereby protecting natural plant resources.

UDP-糖基转移酶（UGT）介导的糖基化是植物天然产物（PNPs）的一种广泛修饰，具有广泛的生物活性，具有重要的药学、生态和农业意义。然而，只有不到 2% 的家族 1 UGT 可以使用功能注释，该家族目前有 20,000 个成员，这些成员已知可以糖基化几类 PNP。如此低的百分比说明了实验研究和准确预测其功能的难度。在这里，建立了一个用于阐明 UGT 介导的 PNP 糖基化过程的合成生物学平台，包括依赖于 UDP-葡萄糖和 UDP-木糖的糖基转移酶。该平台基于通过即插即用的简单方法重建专用微生物酵母底盘中特定的 PNP 生物合成途径。确定了五种 UGT 酶负责三萜类化合物的主要糖基化产物的生物合成三七，包括一种用于三七皂苷 R1 生物合成的新型 UDP-木糖依赖性糖基转移酶。此外，我们还构建了一个酵母细胞工厂，其产量大于 1 g/L 的人参皂苷化合物 K。该功能基因鉴定和菌株工程平台可以作为创建重要天然产物的替代来源，从而保护天然植物资源的基础。