Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, CB2 3EA Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, CB2 3EA Cambridge, United Kingdom
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Feb 20;115(8):1931-1936. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720576115. Epub 2018 Feb 5.
If the highly efficient C photosynthesis pathway could be transferred to crops with the C pathway there could be yield gains of up to 50%. It has been proposed that the multiple metabolic and developmental modifications associated with C photosynthesis are underpinned by relatively few master regulators that have allowed the evolution of C photosynthesis more than 60 times in flowering plants. Here we identify a component of one such regulator that consists of a pair of -elements located in coding sequence of multiple genes that are preferentially expressed in bundle sheath cells of C leaves. These motifs represent duons as they play a dual role in coding for amino acids as well as controlling the spatial patterning of gene expression associated with the C leaf. They act to repress transcription of C photosynthesis genes in mesophyll cells. These duons are also present in the C model , and, in fact, are conserved in all land plants and even some algae that use C photosynthesis. C photosynthesis therefore appears to have coopted an ancient regulatory code to generate the spatial patterning of gene expression that is a hallmark of C photosynthesis. This intragenic transcriptional regulatory sequence could be exploited in the engineering of efficient photosynthesis of crops.
如果能够将高效的 C3 光合作用途径转移到 C3 途径的作物中，产量可能会增加 50%。有人提出，与 C3 光合作用相关的多种代谢和发育修饰是由相对较少的主调控因子支撑的，这些因子允许 C3 光合作用在开花植物中进化了 60 多次。在这里，我们鉴定了一个这样的调控因子的组成部分，它由一对位于多个基因编码序列中的 -元件组成，这些基因在 C3 叶片的束鞘细胞中优先表达。这些基序代表双元，因为它们在编码氨基酸以及控制与 C3 叶片相关的基因表达的空间模式方面发挥双重作用。它们的作用是抑制质体中 C3 光合作用基因的转录。这些双元也存在于 C3 模型中，实际上，它们在所有陆地植物中甚至在一些使用 C3 光合作用的藻类中都保守。因此，C3 光合作用似乎已经采用了古老的调控密码来产生 C3 光合作用的标志性空间基因表达模式。这种基因内转录调控序列可以用于工程作物高效光合作用的设计。
