Int. J. Dev. Biol. 57: 565 - 576 (2013)

https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.130162pc

Vol 57, Issue 6-7-8

Special Issue: Plant Transgenesis

Engineering metabolic pathways in plants by multigene transformation

Published: 9 October 2013

Uxue Zorrilla-López^#,1, Gemma Masip^#,1, Gemma Arjó², Chao Bai¹, Raviraj Banakar¹, Ludovic Bassie¹, Judit Berman¹, Gemma Farré¹, Bruna Miralpeix¹, Eduard Pérez-Massot¹, Maite Sabalza¹, Georgina Sanahuja¹, Evangelia Vamvaka¹, Richard M. Twyman³, Paul Christou^1,4, Changfu Zhu¹ and Teresa Capell*^,1

¹Department of Plant Production and Forestry Science, School of Agrifood and Forestry Science and Engineering (ETSEA), University of Lleida-Agrotecnio Center, Lleida, Spain, ²Department of Medicine, Institute of Biomedical Research (IRB), University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain, ³School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK and ⁴Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

Abstract

Metabolic engineering in plants can be used to increase the abundance of specific valuable metabolites, but single-point interventions generally do not improve the yields of target metabolites unless that product is immediately downstream of the intervention point and there is a plentiful supply of precursors. In many cases, an intervention is necessary at an early bottleneck, sometimes the first committed step in the pathway, but is often only successful in shifting the bottleneck downstream, sometimes also causing the accumulation of an undesirable metabolic intermediate. Occasionally it has been possible to induce multiple genes in a pathway by controlling the expression of a key regulator, such as a transcription factor, but this strategy is only possible if such master regulators exist and can be identified. A more robust approach is the simultaneous expression of multiple genes in the pathway, preferably representing every critical enzymatic step, therefore removing all bottlenecks and ensuring completely unrestricted metabolic flux. This approach requires the transfer of multiple enzyme-encoding genes to the recipient plant, which is achieved most efficiently if all genes are transferred at the same time. Here we review the state of the art in multigene transformation as applied to metabolic engineering in plants, highlighting some of the most significant recent advances in the field.

Keywords

direct DNA transfer, multigene transformation, metabolic pathway, genetic engineering