Abstract
ent-Kaurene is a hydrocarbon precursor for gibberellins. We have previously reported that some plants emit ent-kaurene into the headspace and that the airborne ent-kaurene is able to fully complement the dwarf phenotype of the Arabidopsis ga1-3 and ga2-1 mutants.
To address whether structural differences in the diterpene hydrocarbon affect the emission into the headspace, we generated transgenic plants overproducing a heterologous diterpene cyclase in the plastid. GC-MS analysis indicated that the transgenic plants are able to release heterologous diterpene hydrocarbon to the atmosphere. In addition, we demonstrated in the transgenic plants that the released hydrocarbon is predominantly produced through the MEP pathway, using a feeding experiment that enabled us to label downstream isoprenoids with 13C isotopes through the MVA and MEP pathways, respectively. We are currently screening Arabidopsis mutants with altered ability to emit ent-kaurene into the headspace.
