结构与功能

Asparagus officinalis is most extensively studied species within the genus Asparagus, which is well known as garden asparagus. This species is dioecious with unisexual flowers, which means that generative propagation gives roughly equal number of male and female plants. Male plants a ...

RNAi (RNA interference, RNA silencing) is a powerful tool in functional genomics. We report here the use of transient RNAi to isolate regulatory factor genes involved in isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis in Coptis japonica protoplasts. Double-stranded (ds) RNAs prepared against c ...

The pigmentation of anthocyanins is one of the important determinants for consumer preference and marketability in horticultural crops such as fruits and flowers. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying the physiological process leading to the pigmentation of anthocyanins, id ...

Bromosulfalein is an organic anion dye used in the study of a variety of membrane carriers expressed in animal tissues and involved in transport of drugs and metabolites. The spectrophotometric assay of electrogenic bromosulfalein transport in membrane vesicles, isolated from vari ...

Flavonoids are a class of secondary metabolites present in large amounts in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.), which are involved in several aspects of its physiology (e.g. protection against biotic and abiotic stress). Even if the biosynthetic pathways of flavonoid sub-classes have been lar ...

Plants have metabolic pathways leading to tens of thousands of secondary products capable of effectively responding to stress situations imposed by biotic and abiotic factors. These pathways, often recruited from essential primary metabolism pathways upon initial gene duplic ...

To establish the role in alkaloid metabolism of candidate genes identified in silico or by Omics approaches, it may be essential to determine the subcellular localization of the encoded proteins. The fusion with fluorescent proteins (FP) may now be used as a quite effective and reliable tool to i ...

Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) essential oil phenylpropenes are synthesized and accumulate in peltate glandular trichomes and their content and composition depend on plant developmental stage. Studies on gene expression and enzymatic activity indicate that the phenylpropene b ...

Plant cell cultures provide an important method for production and supply of a variety of natural products, where conditions can be easily controlled, manipulated, and optimized. Development and optimization of plant cell culture processes require both bioprocess engineering and ...

Among the different methods currently used to improve yields of secondary metabolites in cultured plant cells, the method involving transformation by rol genes represents an example of relatively new technology. These genes, isolated from plasmids of the plant pathogen Agrobacte ...

Plants synthesize a large number of isoprenoid compounds that have diverse structures and functions. All isoprenoids are synthesized through consecutive condensation of five-carbon precursors, isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP) and its allyl isomer dimethylallyl diphosph ...

Carotenoids are well-known natural pigments, typically ranging from yellow to red. Carotenoids are industrially utilized as functional materials due to their strong antioxidant properties. Phytoene synthesis is known to be a rate-determining step in the entire carotenoid bios ...

The explosive development of the field of molecular biology has led to the need for simpler and more efficient cloning techniques. These requirements are elegantly met by the ligation-free cloning technique called USER cloning. USER cloning is suitable not only for everyday and high-thro ...

Availability of isotope-labelled metabolites often proves to be an essential prerequisite for the successful identification of a biosynthetic pathway. Also for the metabolic engineering isotope-labelled, either radioactive or non-radioactive, biosynthetic interme ...

Metabolic engineering of plant natural product pathways in heterologous systems requires the highly concerted action of several biosynthetic genes. Besides the functional heterologous expression of the genes encoding the natural product biosynthetic pathway, often addi ...

Hydroxynitrile lyase (MeHNL, EC 4.1.2.39) is a useful enzyme for production of optically active cyanohydrin compounds. Production of MeHNL can be increased by substituting rare codons of the natural sequence of cassava (Manihot esculenta) MeHNL. However, most of the MeHNL produced by this ...

Only few biological functions have been related with flavin-containing monooxygenases (FMOs) in plants, such as specific roles in auxin biosynthesis, pathogen defense, and metabolism of glucosinolates. Biochemical characterization using recombinant proteins is a promis ...

A wide variety of secondary metabolites are produced in higher plants. These metabolites are synthesized in specific organs/cells at certain developmental stages and/or under specific environmental conditions. Since these biosynthetic activities are rather restricted and ...

Benzylisoquinoline alkaloids are one of the most important groups of secondary metabolites and include the economically important analgesic morphine and the antimicrobial agent berberine. To improve the productivity of these alkaloids, we investigated the effects of putati ...

An increasing interest in carotenoids as nutritional sources of provitamin A and health-promoting compounds has prompted a significant effort in metabolic engineering of carotenoid content and composition in food crops. The strategy commonly used in plants is to increase the biosy ...