Department of Biology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Plant Biotechnol J. 2013 Feb;11(2):223-32. doi: 10.1111/pbi.12029. Epub 2012 Nov 29.
As the world's second most abundant biopolymer, starch serves as food, feed and renewable resource for bioenergy production and other industrial applications. Unlike storage lipids, starch is stored in the form of semi-crystalline granules, which are tissue- and species-specific in number, shape and size. Over the last decades, most biosynthetic and degradative enzymes of starch metabolism have been identified in the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. Based on this, biotechnological applications have arisen that led to a number of transgenic crop plants with elevated starch content or improved starch quality. Irrespective of this great success, there are still numerous open questions including the regulation of starch metabolism, the initiation of granule formation, the regulation of granule shape and size and many more, which will be tackled over the next decades. Here, we briefly summarize current knowledge concerning starch metabolism and its regulation and biotechnological use.
作为世界上第二丰富的生物聚合物，淀粉是食品、饲料和可再生资源，可用于生物能源生产和其他工业应用。与储存脂质不同，淀粉以半结晶颗粒的形式储存，其数量、形状和大小在组织和物种上具有特异性。在过去的几十年中，模式物种拟南芥中已经鉴定出大多数淀粉代谢的生物合成和降解酶。基于这一点，生物技术应用应运而生，导致了许多转基因作物的淀粉含量增加或淀粉质量提高。尽管取得了这一巨大成功，但仍有许多悬而未决的问题，包括淀粉代谢的调控、颗粒形成的启动、颗粒形状和大小的调控等等，这些问题将在未来几十年得到解决。在这里，我们简要总结了当前关于淀粉代谢及其调控和生物技术应用的知识。
