"As one of the most potent chemotherapeutic agents against a range of malignant tumours, the increasing demand for paclitaxel has led to the development of multiple strategies to address supply issues instead of extracting this compound from the bark of slow-growing yews due to its low content in Taxus plants. . August 2024 combined in silico methods and functional gene analysis to help characterize the taxane hydroxylase, which is needed to oxygenate paclitaxel intermediates. The characterization of a specific taxane hydroxylase referred to as T1βOH was identified as implemental for heterologous systems used to improved cancer therapies. The authors also identified a potential missing enzyme referred to as TB574 that may permit further exploration of novel metabolic engineering approaches with microbial consortia shown in .