Podophyllotoxin is the natural product precursor of the chemotherapeutic etoposide, yet only part of its biosynthetic pathway is known. We used transcriptome mining in Podophyllum hexandrum (mayapple) to identify biosynthetic genes in the podophyllotoxin pathway. We selected 29 candidate genes to combinatorially express in Nicotiana benthamiana (tobacco) and identified six pathway enzymes, incl...
