iPHACTORY: Interdisciplinary study of photosynthetic glandular trichomes as metabolic cell factories

iPHACTORY：光合腺毛作为代谢细胞工厂的跨学科研究

• 批准号: 420069095
• 负责人: Professorin Dr. Anna Matuszynska
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung Stoffwechsel- und Zellbiologie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/420069095?language=en
• 关键词: iPHACTORY; Interdisciplinary; study; photosynthetic; glandular

Higher plants acquired various protective mechanisms in order to increase their environmental fitness. One strategy against biotic attacks involves the production of numerous specialised metabolites for direct or indirect plant defence. In this context, glandular trichomes play an important role in plants survival. Localised on the surface of the aerial parts of plants, they produce, store and secrete high amounts of a wide range of chemically diverse compounds. Due to extremely high metabolic fluxes, production of some can reach even up to 20% of the leaf dry weight, qualifying glandular trichomes as true metabolic cell factories. Many of these metabolites, besides exhibiting antifungal, insecticide or pesticide properties, are of a commercial importance, leading to an increased attention in trichome biology in recent years. Despite multidisciplinary research efforts, a number of questions regarding the bioenergetics of the operation of glandular trichomes remain unanswered. Our gap-in-knowledge on factors regulating the production of metabolites calls for a fundamental research investigating flux distribution through various known and yet, to be elucidated, precursor pathways. We aim to discover how the efficient production of specialised metabolites is reached and what are the origins of carbon and energy supply that maintain such extremely high metabolic fluxes in plant glandular trichomes. We will achieve that by applying an interdisciplinary approach, integrating knowledge from multi-omics experiments with mathematical modelling and computational analyses. As a model system, we will work on photosynthetically active trichomes of tomato. Environmental and genetic perturbations of the system will provide additional insight on the maintenance of the metabolic productivity investigating the possible involvement of a C4-photosynthesis-like network. The mathematical models generated by this project will form the basis for the development of innovative metabolic engineering strategies in plants and other organisms for the production of the most diverse class of secondary metabolites: terpenoids.

高等植物获得了各种保护机制以提高其环境适应性。对抗生物攻击的一种策略涉及生产许多专门的代谢物以用于直接或间接的植物防御。在这种情况下，腺毛在植物生存中发挥着重要作用。它们位于植物地上部分的表面，产生、储存和分泌大量的多种化学成分。由于代谢通量极高，某些腺毛的产量甚至可以达到叶子干重的 20%，使腺毛成为真正的代谢细胞工厂。许多这些代谢物除了具有抗真菌、杀虫剂或杀虫剂特性外，还具有商业重要性，导致近年来毛状体生物学受到越来越多的关注。尽管进行了多学科研究努力，但有关腺毛运作的生物能学的许多问题仍未得到解答。我们对调节代谢物产生的因素的知识差距要求进行基础研究，调查通过各种已知且尚未阐明的前体途径的通量分布。我们的目标是发现如何实现专门代谢物的高效生产，以及维持植物腺毛中如此极高的代谢通量的碳和能量供应的来源是什么。我们将通过应用跨学科方法，将多组学实验的知识与数学建模和计算分析相结合来实现这一目标。作为模型系统，我们将研究番茄具有光合作用活性的毛状体。该系统的环境和遗传扰动将为代谢生产力的维持提供额外的见解，研究 C4 光合作用样网络的可能参与。该项目生成的数学模型将构成植物和其他生物体中创新代谢工程策略开发的基础，以生产最多样化的次生代谢物：萜类化合物。