Regulation of sulphur partitioning between primary and secondary metabolism

过去二十年，我们透过减少废气（例如二氧化硫），在改善空气质素方面取得了重大进展。然而，结果是，自然降落到地球表面的硫减少了，土壤中也缺乏硫。这已经成为英国农业的一个严重问题。硫对所有生物体都是必不可少的，因为它与蛋白质结合在一起，并在许多其他对生命至关重要的化合物中发现。为了制造这种化合物，植物需要从土壤中吸收硫酸盐，将其还原，并将其转化为氨基酸。除了这些“初级”化合物外，植物还会合成各种各样的其他具有生物活性的“次级”分子，这些分子负责植物的气味、颜色或味道。它们还有助于植物抵御昆虫、真菌或细菌。一些作物，如油菜，会产生大量的次生化合物，因此它们的生长比其他植物需要更多的硫。我们想知道植物是如何把它们吸收的硫分成初级产物和次级产物的。我们将专注于我们认为负责控制硫流的一个蛋白质家族。我们将创造出这些蛋白质不再活跃的植物，而这些植物将拥有更多的蛋白质。比较这些植物将使我们了解硫是如何在初级化合物和次级化合物之间进行划分的。我们想测试，通过产生更少的次级化合物来节省硫的植物是否会像普通植物一样健康。这个项目的结果可以让我们开发出更有效地吸收和利用硫的作物，减少对化肥的需求。

In the last two decades we have made great progress in improving our air quality by reducing emissions, e.g. of sulphur dioxide. As a consequence, however, less sulphur is falling naturally onto the Earth`s surface and there is a lack of sulphur in the soil. This has become a serious problem for UK agriculture. Sulphur is essential for all living organisms as it is bound in proteins and found in many other compounds vital for life. To make such compounds, plants need to take up sulphate from the soil, reduce it, and incorporate it into amino acids. In addition to these 'primary' compounds, plants synthesize a great variety of other biologically active 'secondary' molecules that are responsible for scent, colour, or the taste of plants. They also help in the defence of the plants against insects, fungi, or bacteria. Some crops, such as oilseed rape, produce a lot of these secondary compounds and therefore require more sulphur for their growth than other plants. We want to know how plants divide the sulphur they take up between the primary and secondary products. We will concentrate on one family of proteins that we believe are responsible for control of sulphur flow. We will create plants where these proteins will no longer be active and plants which will have much more of them. Comparing such plants will enable us to understand how the sulphur is divided between primary and secondary compounds. We want to test, whether plants that save sulphur by producing less of the secondary compounds will be as healthy as normal plants. The results of this project could allow us to develop crop plants that take up and use sulphur more efficiently, reducing the need for fertilisers.