Dissecting the pine tree green chemical factory

Oleoresin, a mixture of terpenoids produced by pine trees, protects the tree against insects but is also exploited by humans for a variety of industrial applications. Turner et al. (2018) quite literally dissected the machinery that is responsible for the highly specialized production of these green chemicals in loblolly pine. Not only does this further reveal the incredible metabolic specialization in the secretory cells of pine trees, but it will help in unravelling the mechanisms underlying the formation of these defensive chemicals and could inspire new engineering approaches for the production of renewable, green chemicals.