Biochemistry of essential oil terpenes - A thirty year overview

During the last thirty years, the number of structurally defined terpenoids has increased to over 30,000 and methods for the study of the biogenetic o rigins of these natural products have progressed from in vivo feeding exper iments with labeled precursors, to work with cell-free enzyme systems, to t he application of newer molecular biological approaches. Advances in this n ow well unified field are described, with emphasis on the biochemistry of m onoterpenes and the biotechnological applications afforded by modern molecu lar genetics.