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Secondary metabolites often play an important role in plant defense against herbivory and other interspecies defenses. Humans use secondary metabolites as medicines, flavourings, pigments, and recreational drugs. [2] The term secondary metabolite was first coined by Albrecht Kossel, the 1910 Nobel Prize laureate for medicine and physiology.
Secondary metabolites are produced by many microbes, plants, fungi and animals, usually living in crowded habitats, where chemical defense represents a better option than physical escape. [2] It is very hard to distinguish primary and secondary metabolites due to often overlapping of the intermediates and pathways of primary and secondary ...
A secondary metabolite is not directly involved in those processes, but usually has important ecological function. Examples include antibiotics and pigments. [40] By contrast, in human-based metabolomics, it is more common to describe metabolites as being either endogenous (produced by the host organism) or exogenous.
A secondary metabolite is not directly involved in those processes, but usually has important ecological function. Secondary metabolites may include pigments, antibiotics or waste products derived from partially metabolized xenobiotics. The study of the metabolome is called metabolomics.
In biochemistry, a metabolite is an intermediate or end product of metabolism. [1] The term is usually used for small molecules.Metabolites have various functions, including fuel, structure, signaling, stimulatory and inhibitory effects on enzymes, catalytic activity of their own (usually as a cofactor to an enzyme), defense, and interactions with other organisms (e.g. pigments, odorants, and ...
Click any text (name of pathway or metabolites) to link to the corresponding article. Single lines: pathways common to most lifeforms. Double lines: pathways not in humans (occurs in e.g. plants, fungi, prokaryotes). Orange nodes: carbohydrate metabolism. Violet nodes: photosynthesis. Red nodes: cellular respiration. Pink nodes: cell signaling.
They are most widely known for producing secondary metabolites, the source or basis of most pharmaceutical compounds, natural toxins, chemical communication, and chemical warfare between organisms. Metabolic gene clusters are also involved in nutrient acquisition, toxin degradation, [ 7 ] antimicrobial resistance, and vitamin biosynthesis. [ 5 ]
They are produced by a large variety of organisms, including cyanobacteria, and are part of the group of natural products, also called secondary metabolites. Alkaloids act on diverse metabolic systems in humans and other animals, often with psychotropic or toxic effects. Almost uniformly, they are bitter tasting. [40]