A plant balancing act: Meshing new and existing metabolic pathways towards an optimized system
Research output: Contribution to journal › Review › Research › peer-review
Specialized metabolic pathways evolve from existing pathways, creating new functionality potentially boosting fitness. However, how these pathways are integrated into a pre-existing working and well-balanced metabolic system is unclear. They could be integrated to the system as a functional appendage, or they could be fully embedded into primary metabolism by establishing new biochemical and regulatory connections. A full integration into the primary metabolic system requires substantial system re-wiring and because of this complexity, the latter is often not experimentally pursued. New studies provide evidence that some specialized metabolic pathways are fully embedded in primary metabolism with extensive new regulatory and biochemical connections. This suggests, that we should consider whether other specialized metabolic pathways could be fully integrated rather than being simple appendages. In this mini review, we survey compelling evidence supporting that some specialized metabolic pathways are fully integrated and ask if these metabolites now act as de-facto primary metabolites?
Original language | English |
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Article number | 102173 |
Journal | Current Opinion in Plant Biology |
Volume | 66 |
ISSN | 1369-5266 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
- Broad TF regulation, Dual role enzymes, Glucosinolate, Integrated/coordinated metabolism, Primary metabolism, Retrograde metabolic flow, Specialized metabolism
Research areas
ID: 313055904