Structural and functional diversity in plant specialized metabolism signals and products: The case of oxylipins and triterpenes

Metabolic enzymes tend to evolve towards catalytic efficacy, precision and speed. This seems particularly true for ancient and conserved enzymes involved in fundamental cellular processes that are present virtually in every cell and organism and converting and producing relatively limited metabolite...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in plant biology 2023-08, Vol.74, p.102371-102371, Article 102371
Main Authors: Lacchini, Elia, Venegas-Molina, Jhon, Goossens, Alain
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cytochrome P450
Enzymes
Jasmonate
OPDA
Oxidosqualene
Oxylipins
Saponins
Specialized metabolism
Triterpenes
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Summary:Metabolic enzymes tend to evolve towards catalytic efficacy, precision and speed. This seems particularly true for ancient and conserved enzymes involved in fundamental cellular processes that are present virtually in every cell and organism and converting and producing relatively limited metabolite numbers. Nevertheless, sessile organisms like plants have an astonishing repertoire of specific (specialized) metabolites that, by numbers and chemical complexity, by far exceed primary metabolites. Most theories agree that early gene duplication, subsequent positive selection and diversifying evolution have allowed relaxed selection of duplicated metabolic genes, thus facilitating the accumulation of mutations that could broaden substrate/product specificity and lower activation barriers and kinetics. Here, we use oxylipins, oxygenated fatty acids of plastidial origin to which the phytohormone jasmonate belongs, and triterpenes, a large group of specialized metabolites whose biosynthesis is often elicited by jasmonates, to showcase the structural and functional diversity of chemical signals and products in plant metabolism.
ISSN:1369-5266
1879-0356
DOI:10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102371