O Goddijn | PubMed Health

PubMed2001

Enhancing photosynthesis with sugar signals.

Photosynthesis has long been a target in the quest to maximize crop productivity to feed burgeoning populations. Recent evidence suggests that improved photosynthetic performance can be most easily achieved by modifying sugar-signalling mechanisms that control the expression of genes for whole pathways and processes that determine photosynthetic capacity and source-sink balance, rather than by directly targeting individual 'key' enzymes. Here, we highlight recent progress and support for the hypothesis that genetic modification of trehalose metabolism through its interaction with sugar-signalling pathways can enhance photosynthetic capacity.

Carbohydrate Metabolism↗

PubMed1998

Sensing trehalose biosynthesis in plants.

A most unexpected finding in research on plant carbohydrate metabolism is the recent discovery that angiosperms encode genes whose products are involved in trehalose metabolism. The presence and functionality of such genes has been elegantly shown by expressing Arabidopsis-derived trehalose phosphate synthase and trehalose phosphate phosphatase genes in yeast mutants lacking these enzymatic activities. Homologue sequences have now been cloned from a number of different plant species suggesting that the capacity to synthesise trehalose is ubiquitous in angiosperms. Except for Myrothamnus flabellifolius, trehalose biosynthesis has never been observed in tissues of higher plants, probably due to the presence of high levels of trehalase activity. The function of trehalose metabolism in plants is still a mystery. One of the postulated functions of trehalose metabolism in yeast is in the control of glucose repression and a similar function in sugar sensing can be proposed for plants as well.

Genes, Plant↗