ME: Collaborative Research: Metabolic Engineering of Floral Scent

花香是农作物和观赏植物的重要特征。在昆虫授粉的重要农艺学植物中，花香对种子和果实的形成至关重要。对于观赏植物来说，香味增加了植物的审美价值，从而直接使消费者受益。近年来在分离气味生物合成基因方面取得的进展为对花香进行基因操作开辟了可能性。本研究的长期目标是利用代谢工程的工具，结合代谢通量分析和建模来改善和增强观赏花卉和切花的花香。有两种不同的方法可以实现这一目标：通过改变代谢通量来增加已有气味化合物的数量，并在花香中引入新的气味化合物。该研究有望对矮牵牛花和康乃馨的气味产生的代谢网络进行定量描述，并揭示靶向代谢工程对代谢途径中代谢产物和通量的稳态水平的影响。目标代谢工程与代谢通量分析的结合将为植物花香产生的调控提供全面的认识。此外，该研究将填补我们对花代谢的理解的重要空白，并为植物代谢途径工程的普遍应用提供强大的建模工具。该研究还将为未来为种子、饲料或食物价值而种植的作物的花香代谢工程奠定基础，以增加其对传粉者的吸引力，从而确保有效的传粉。此外，该项目将为本科生和研究生以及博士后（包括女性和少数民族）提供重要的多学科培训，内容涉及植物生理学、体内同位素标记、分析生物化学、分子生物学、遗传学和综合建模。在本项目中获得的关于次级代谢、代谢工程和综合建模的信息和方法将通过WebCT纳入普渡大学和密歇根大学的现有课程。

Floral scent is an important character for both crop plants and ornamentals. Floral scent in insect-pollinated, agronomically important plants is crucial for seed and fruit set. For ornamental plants, scent increases the plant's aesthetic value, thus directly benefiting consumers. Recent advances in the isolation of scent biosynthetic genes have opened up the possibility for the genetic manipulation of floral scent. The long-term goal of this research is to use tools of metabolic engineering in combination with metabolic flux analysis and modeling to improve and enhance floral scent in ornamental and cut flowers. Two different approaches will be used to achieve this goal: increasing the amount of pre-existing scent compounds by shifting the metabolic flux, and introducing new scent compounds into the floral scent bouquet. The research is expected to provide a quantitative description of the metabolic networks involved in scent production in petunia and carnation, and uncover the effects of targeted metabolic engineering on steady-state levels of metabolites and fluxes in the pathways. The integration of targeted metabolic engineering with metabolic flux analysis will provide a comprehensive understanding of the regulation of floral scent production in plants. Moreover, this research will fill important gaps in our understanding of floral metabolism in general, and provide powerful modeling tools for general use in the engineering of plant metabolic pathways. The research will also build a foundation for the future metabolic engineering of floral scent of crop plants cultivated for their seed, forage, or food value, with the purpose of increasing their attractiveness to pollinators and thus ensuring efficient pollination. In addition, the project will provide a significant multidisciplinary training of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral associates, including women and minorities, in plant physiology, in vivo isotopic labeling, analytical biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and integrative modeling. The information and methodologies obtained in this project on secondary metabolism, metabolic engineering, and integrative modeling will be incorporated via WebCT into existing courses at Purdue University and the University of Michigan.