Host: The Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists
Pages 0072
Plants accumulate various aromatic secondary metabolites with biological activity. Biosynthetic pathways of those metabolites are branched at p-coumaric acid which is synthesized by phenylpropanoid pathway.
Our research objective is to modify aromatic secondary metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana for production of useful metabolites. We have introduced the gene encoding tyrosine ammonia-lyase (TAL) from photosynthetic bacterium into Arabidopsis, aiming at bypassing the rate-limiting steps of phenylpropanoid pathway. Higher amount of some phenylpropanoids and quercetin glycosides were accumulated in TAL-expressing plants than in control plants. Transgenic Arabidopsis expressing the gene encoding flavone synthase (FNS) from parsley have been obtained for production of flavones. In FNS-expressing plants, apigenin was accumulated upon feeding of substrate naringenin.
We performed flavonoid-targeted analyses of TAL-expressing plants for understanding the effect of TAL expression more precisely. Transgenic plants harboring TAL and FNS were obtained, and secondary metabolites accumulated in those plants were analyzed.
