Nutritional Enrichment of Plant Leaves by Combining Genes Promoting Tocopherol Biosynthesis and Storage
Morelli, Luca (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
García Romañach, Laura (Centre de Recerca en Agrigenòmica)
Glauser, Gaetan (University of Neuchâtel)
Shanmugabalaji, Venkatasalam (University of Neuchâtel)
Kessler, Felix (University of Neuchâtel)
Rodríguez Concepción, Manuel (Universitat Politècnica de València)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	The enrichment of plant tissues in tocochromanols (tocopherols and tocotrienols) is an important biotechnological goal due to their vitamin E and antioxidant properties. Improvements based on stimulating tocochromanol biosynthesis have repeatedly been achieved, however, enhancing sequestering and storage in plant plastids remains virtually unexplored. We previously showed that leaf chloroplasts can be converted into artificial chromoplasts with a proliferation of plastoglobules by overexpression of the bacterial crtB gene. Here we combined coexpression of crtB with genes involved in tocopherol biosynthesis to investigate the potential of artificial leaf chromoplasts for vitamin E accumulation in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. We show that this combination improves tocopherol levels compared to controls without crtB and confirm that VTE1, VTE5, VTE6 and tyrA genes are useful to increase the total tocopherol levels, while VTE4 further leads to enrichment in α-tocopherol (the tocochromanol showing highest vitamin E activity). Additionally, we show that treatments that further promote plastoglobule formation (e. g. , exposure to intense light or dark-induced senescence) result in even higher improvements in the tocopherol content of the leaves. An added advantage of our strategy is that it also results in increased levels of other related plastidial isoprenoids such as carotenoids (provitamin A) and phylloquinones (vitamin K1).
Grants:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2020-115810GB-I00 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PCI2021-121941 "la Caixa" Foundation LCF/BQ/IN18/11660004
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Tocopherols ; Vitamins ; Biofortification ; N. benthamiana ; Transient expression ; Chromoplasts
Published in:	Metabolites, Vol. 13, Issue 2 (February 2023) , art. 193, ISSN 2218-1989

DOI: 10.3390/metabo13020193
PMID: 36837812

15 p, 2.1 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > CRAG (Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles