The functional organization and control of plant carbohydrate and phosphate metabolism

新陈代谢是指在任何给定时间细胞内发生的所有酶催化的化学反应。了解细胞代谢的组织和控制对人类非常重要，因为它在以下方面有重要的应用：i)阐明并最终解决人类健康中的许多问题和由“代谢紊乱”引起的疾病；ii)重组DNA技术的有效生物技术应用，通过“基本代谢工程”创造“改良的”动物、植物和微生物。植物代谢工程在培育耐压作物方面发挥着关键作用，这些作物可为世界上迅速增长的人口增加可持续的粮食生产(同时节约淡水等宝贵资源)，并将大气中的二氧化碳循环利用为可再生的生物燃料和能源，以及一系列工业原料。我的研究计划旨在确定植物碳水化合物和磷酸盐代谢的功能组织和控制。通过对关键酶的分子、调控和功能特性进行深入的研究，我们可以得出以下结论：i)在种子发育过程中，碳分配给重要的贮藏最终产品(淀粉、油和蛋白质)；ii)获取无机磷，这是作物生长和发育所需的一种关键但限制环境的常量营养素。我们的研究在加拿大农业和环境保护问题上有着重要的应用，包括：i)有针对性地修改我们主要油料作物(如油菜籽和大豆)的储油与蛋白质水平，以及ii)开发高效利用磷酸盐的作物，这是减少人类猖獗但高度低效地使用不可再生、不可持续、污染和昂贵的磷肥所迫切需要的。在这一授权期间，我的HQP将继续将创新的蛋白质组、基因组和细胞生物学工具整合到我们的研究中。这些进展需要不断的重组、培训和优化，但也提供了我们可以检验的假设类型的量化改进，并为现代植物代谢生物化学中的HQP培训奠定了坚实的基础。

'Metabolism' refers to all of the enzyme catalyzed chemical reactions occurring in a cell at any given time. Understanding the organization and control of cellular metabolism is of great importance to mankind as it has crucial applications to: i) elucidating and ultimately solving many problems in human health and disease arising from 'metabolic disorders', & ii) the effective biotechnological application of recombinant DNA technology for creating 'improved' animals, plants, and microbes via 'rationale metabolic engineering'. Plant metabolic engineering is playing a pivotal role in the creation of stress tolerant crops for increasing sustainable food production for the world's rapidly expanding population (while conserving precious resources such as fresh water), as well as recycling atmospheric carbon dioxide into renewable biofuels and energy sources, and a host of industrial feed-stocks. My research program seeks to identify the functional organization and control of plant carbohydrate and phosphate metabolism. This is approached by thoroughly characterizing the molecular, regulatory, and functional properties of key enzymes controlling: i) carbon partitioning to important storage end-products (starch, oil, & protein) in developing seeds, & ii) acquisition of inorganic phosphate, a crucial but environmentally limiting macronutrient needed for crop growth and development. Our studies have significant applications to problems in Canadian agriculture and environmental protection including the: i) targeted modification of storage oil vs. protein levels in our major oilseed crops such as canola and soybean, and ii) development of phosphate-use efficient crops, urgently needed to reduce mankind's rampant but highly inefficient use of non-renewable, unsustainable, polluting, and expensive phosphate fertilizers. During this granting period my HQP will continue to integrate innovative proteomic, genomic, and cell biology tools into our research. These advances require constant retooling, training, and optimization, but provide quantitative improvements in the types of hypotheses that we can test, and a solid foundation for HQP training in modern plant metabolic biochemistry.