Control of flux and adaptive responses at the interface of primary and secondary plant metabolism

植物是农业生产和加拿大许多其他经济部门的基础。通过光合作用，它们将二氧化碳等环境污染物转化为明天的原材料。它们为我们提供了食物、药品和可持续燃料生产的关键，这要归功于使植物变得独特的复杂代谢途径。讽刺的是，我们对它们的新陈代谢知之甚少。推进我们对这一主题的了解将创造新的机会，以开发技术，在更少的土地上生产更有营养的食物，用更少的废物生产挽救生命的药物，以及更有效的燃料。这项提案详细说明了一个长期愿景，即阐明植物如何将矿物质转化为有价值的天然产品，环境线索如何改变它们的代谢优先顺序，以及小信号分子如何调节这一过程。简单地说，这个程序的目的是了解植物的新陈代谢是如何控制的。这将涉及应用严格的数学技术，使用模型来定量定义这些复杂生物过程的控制点。这些模型的数据是从整个植物代谢过程的直接、生理相关的测量中获得的，使用同位素标记研究和质谱学，这是我的研究计划的定义特征。*我的计划解决了初级(基本)和次级(专门)植物新陈代谢的界面，重点关注一种生物合成途径，产生一组被称为萜类化合物的高价值天然产物。这些无处不在的化合物通过抗虫害、营养强化和植物性生物工厂的制药生产，为加拿大经济提供了无数的生物技术和农业机会。植物将大气中的二氧化碳转化为萜类化合物和许多其他化合物，为它们的生长和发育提供动力，同时感受到周围环境的压力，并相应地转移它们的资源。这种平衡行为，就像一个微调的经济一样分配新陈代谢资源，强烈地有利于它们的生存，并对我们诱使植物积累对人类有益的高价值产品的能力产生巨大影响。因此，该建议还关注一组小信号分子，它们充当代谢控制开关，重新编程植物如何将资源分配给生长、防御或有价值的次生代谢物，如萜类化合物。这种定量的、多学科的研究植物代谢的方法将在一条又一条途径的碳利用分析的基础上，在拟南芥中创建一种新型的代谢路线图。这种植物新陈代谢的新方法将创造与合成生物学家合作的机会，以解决二氧化碳水平上升、化石燃料减少以及使用下一代植物生产安全、高营养产品的日益增长的需求。**

Plants are the basis for agricultural production and many other sectors of Canada's economy. Through photosynthesis, they convert environmental pollutants like CO2 into the raw materials of tomorrow. They provide us with food, medicines, and the key to sustainable fuel production thanks to the complex metabolic pathways that make plants unique. Ironically, we understand little about their metabolism. Advancing our knowledge of this subject will create new opportunities to develop technologies that generate more nutritious food on less land, life-saving medicines with less waste, and more efficient fuels. This proposal details a long term vision for elucidating how plants convert minerals into valuable natural products, how environmental cues alter their metabolic priorities, and how small signaling molecules mediate this process. Simply put, this program aims to understand how the metabolism of plants is controlled. This will involve the application of rigorous mathematical techniques to quantitatively define the control points of these complex biological processes using models. The data for these models are obtained from direct, physiologically relevant measurements of metabolic processes in whole plants using isotopic labeling studies and mass spectrometry, the defining feature of my research program.****** My program addresses the interface of primary (essential) and secondary (specialized) plant metabolism, focusing on a biosynthetic pathway yielding a high value group of natural products known as terpenoids. These ubiquitous compounds provide myriad biotechnological and agricultural opportunities for the Canadian economy via pest resistance, nutritional fortification, and pharmaceutical production in plant-based biofactories. Plants convert CO2 in the atmosphere to terpenoids and many other compounds needed to power their growth and development, all while sensing stress in their surroundings and shifting their resources accordingly. This balancing act, which allocates metabolic resources like a finely tuned economy, strongly favors their survival and has a dramatic impact on our ability to coax plants into accumulating high value products of benefit to humans. Therefore, this proposal also focuses on a group of small signaling molecules which act as metabolic control switches, reprogramming how plants allocate their resources toward growth, defense, or valuable secondary metabolites like terpenoids. This quantitative, multidisciplinary approach to studying plant metabolism will create a new type of metabolic road map in Arabidopsis based on pathway by pathway' carbon use analysis. This novel approach to plant metabolism will create collaborative opportunities with synthetic biologists to address rising CO2 levels, diminishing fossil fuels, and increasing demand for safe, highly nutritious produce using next generation plants.**