Functional genomics of family 1 glycosyltransferases in Arabidopsis

Glycosylation plays an important role for the stabilization, enhancement of water solubility and detoxification of natural products. It also contributes to the highly diverse nature of plant secondary metabolites. Family 1 glycosyltransferases, often referred to as UDP-glycosyltransferases (UGTs), catalyze the transfer of sugar moieties to a wide range of acceptor molecules including plant hormones, phenylpropanoids, flavonoids, betalains, coumarins, terpenoids, steroids and glucosinolates in planta. Completion of the sequencing of the Arabidopsis genome revealed the presence of 107 UGT genes and also provided novel approaches to determine the functions of UGTs using genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. This review describes recent developments in functional genomics efforts on UGTs for plant natural products.