Nutritional Enrichment of Plant Leaves by Combining Genes Promoting Tocopherol Biosynthesis and Storage

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 st...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Morelli, Luca, García-Romañach, Laura, Glauser, Gaétan, Shanmugabalaji, Venkatasalam, Kessler, Felix, Rodriguez-Concepcion, Manuel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/335536
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/335536
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85148911710
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:N. benthamiana
Biofortification
Chromoplasts
Tocopherols
Transient expression
Vitamins
Descripción
Sumario: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).