Making new molecules--evolution of structures for novel metabolites in plants.

Secondary metabolites are essential plant fitness within the natural environment by providing defense against attacking and competing organisms including bacteria, fungi, insects, animals and other plants. These compounds' defensive function is frequently intertwined with specific accumulation in novel developmental structures. While, the biochemical community is making great strides in identifying the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that allow these chemicals to be synthesized there is vastly less progress on understanding the developmental mechanisms that is equally key to their defensive function. In this review, I briefly delve into several novel developmental structures and provide evolutionary hypothesis for how they may have evolved and how they could be unique systems for studying key developmental processes that have heretofore been recalcitrant to study.