Identification of transcription factors regulating plant secondary metabolism through the integration of functional genomics and metabolomics

通过功能基因组学和代谢组学的整合鉴定调节植物次生代谢的转录因子

• 批准号: BB/D007089/1
• 负责人: Cathie Martin
• 金额: $ 31.59万
• 依托单位: John Innes Centre
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2006 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FD007089%2F1
• 关键词: Identification; transcription; factors; regulating; plant

Plants produce a very broad array of metabolites, which are not essential for growth of plant cells, but which are used by plants to provide protection against stress and pathogens, to attact pollinators and dispersal agents and as signals for development. These are often referred to as 'secondary metabolites' but are known more generally as plant 'natural products'. Natural products have recently become recognised as important components of the diet, offering protection against cardiovascular diseases, certain cancers and age-related degenerative diseases. They are also important components of beauty products and natural remedies for diseases. Plants often accumulate their natural products to relatively low levels, so there is a lot of interest in breeding or engineering plants that produce higher levels. It has been shown that the most effective way to increase the accumulation of secondary metabolites is to increase the activity of genes that regulate the activity of the biosynthetic pathways that make different natural products. Regulatory genes of this type encode proteins called transcription factors. The biggest bottleneck in using this strategy to develop plants that accumulate significantly higher levels of important natural products is that not many transcription factors regulating secondary metabolism have yet been identified at the molecular level. This proposal aims to identify transcription factors from the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, that control different branches of secondary metabolism. This will be achieved by studying a selected group of genes that probably encode transcription factors (identified from preliminary evidence as likely regulators). The activity of each of 38 such genes will be increased and the effects on metabolism will be measured by physico-chemical techniques that can identify major differences in the levels of small organic molecules (metabolites) within plant extracts. It is likely that several of the selected genes encode transcription factors that have the same regulatory activity. These genes will be identified because increasing their activity will result in exactly the same changes in metabolites in plants. The aim will be to identify all the proteins that have the same regulatory activities and then to choose one example from each distinct activity group to establish the effects of loss of that activity on metabolite levels. This will be done using sensitive techniques of separation coupled with quantitative identification by mass spectrometry. The combination of metabolic fingerprinting and metabolite profiling should allow us to identify new genes encoding transcription factors controlling secondary metabolism that can be used as tools for engineering natural product accumulation. This project will also make an important contribution to method development for broad range identification and comparison of metabolite profiles in plants.

植物产生非常广泛的代谢物，这些代谢物对于植物细胞的生长不是必需的，但植物利用它们来提供针对胁迫和病原体的保护、吸引传粉媒介和传播剂以及作为发育信号。这些通常被称为“次级代谢物”，但更普遍地称为植物“天然产物”。天然产品最近被认为是饮食的重要组成部分，可以预防心血管疾病、某些癌症和与年龄相关的退行性疾病。它们也是美容产品和疾病自然疗法的重要组成部分。植物通常将其天然产物积累到相对较低的水平，因此人们对培育或工程改造产生较高水平的植物很感兴趣。研究表明，增加次生代谢物积累的最有效方法是增加调节产生不同天然产物的生物合成途径活性的基因的活性。这种类型的调节基因编码称为转录因子的蛋白质。使用这种策略来开发积累显着更高水平的重要天然产物的植物的最大瓶颈是，在分子水平上尚未鉴定出许多调节次生代谢的转录因子。该提案旨在从模式植物拟南芥中识别控制次生代谢不同分支的转录因子。这将通过研究一组可能编码转录因子的选定基因（根据初步证据确定为可能的调节因子）来实现。 38 个此类基因中每一个的活性都将增加，并且通过物理化学技术测量对新陈代谢的影响，该技术可以识别植物提取物中有机小分子（代谢物）水平的主要差异。很可能几个选定的基因编码具有相同调节活性的转录因子。这些基因将被识别，因为增加它们的活性将导致植物代谢物发生完全相同的变化。目的是识别具有相同调节活性的所有蛋白质，然后从每个不同的活性组中选择一个示例，以确定该活性丧失对代谢物水平的影响。这将使用敏感的分离技术和质谱定量鉴定来完成。代谢指纹图谱和代谢物分析的结合应该使我们能够识别编码控制次生代谢的转录因子的新基因，这些基因可以用作工程天然产物积累的工具。该项目还将为植物代谢物谱的广泛鉴定和比较的方法开发做出重要贡献。