Metabolic Engineering to Modify Flower Color

Thanks to the rapid progress in molecular biology of flavonoid biosynthesis and plant transformation, it has become feasible to modify the pathway and flower color through genetic engineering. One of the advantages of molecular breeding is that flower color can be specifically modified without changing the other characteristics of the targeted variety. Novel flower color varieties such as brickred petunias and violet carnations have been successfully made by expression of heterologous flavonoid genes. Flavonoid metabolic engineering has and will give new perspectives in plant molecular biology besides its industrial application.