Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany.
Center of Plant System Biology and Biotechnology, 4000 Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
J Integr Plant Biol. 2018 Dec;60(12):1199-1216. doi: 10.1111/jipb.12690. Epub 2018 Sep 12.
The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is one of the canonical energy pathways of living systems, as well as being an example of a pathway in which dynamic enzyme assemblies, or metabolons, are well characterized. The role of the enzymes have been the subject of saturated transgenesis approaches, whereby the expression of the constituent enzymes were reduced or knocked out in order to ascertain their in vivo function. Some of the resultant plants exhibited improved photosynthesis and plant growth, under controlled greenhouse conditions. In addition, overexpression of the endogenous genes, or heterologous forms of a number of the enzymes, has been carried out in tomato fruit and the roots of a range of species, and in some instances improvement in fruit yield and postharvest properties and plant performance, under nutrient limitation, have been reported, respectively. Given a number of variants, in nature, we discuss possible synthetic approaches involving introducing these variants, or at least a subset of them, into plants. We additionally discuss the likely consequences of introducing synthetic metabolons, wherein certain pairs of reactions are artificially permanently assembled into plants, and speculate as to future strategies to further improve plant productivity by manipulation of the core metabolic pathway.
三羧酸 (TCA) 循环是生命系统的典型能量途径之一，也是动态酶组装体或代谢物特征明显的途径之一。这些酶的作用一直是饱和转基因方法的主题，通过降低或敲除组成酶的表达来确定它们的体内功能。在受控温室条件下，一些植物表现出更好的光合作用和植物生长。此外，在番茄果实和一系列物种的根中过量表达内源性基因或许多酶的异源形式，在某些情况下，分别在养分限制下报告了果实产量和采后特性以及植物性能的改善。鉴于自然界中的多种变体，我们讨论了涉及将这些变体或其中至少一部分引入植物的可能的合成方法。我们还讨论了引入人工合成代谢物的可能后果，其中某些对反应被人为地永久性组装到植物中，并推测通过操纵核心代谢途径进一步提高植物生产力的未来策略。
