[Plant volatiles and their metabolic engineering].
Plant volatiles mainly include terpenoid, benzenoid/phenylpropanoid and fatty-acid derivatives, and they play diverse roles in plant-plant and plant-insect communications. In recent years, great progress has been made in biochemical and molecular characterization of the formation and release of these volatiles, and this make it possible to dissect their biological functions. More than 30 kinds of genes related with biosynthesis of these volatiles have been cloned. The pathways leading to synthesis of these metabolites can be controlled by enzyme activity and the substrates available as well as gene architecture. Plant volatiles can serve as attractants for specific pollinators, important cellular regulators in developmental processes and protection against environmental stress, whereas those released after herbivory or pathogen attacks can induce the expression a set of defensive genes or attraction of predators of the herbivores. An attractive prospect in this area is to design scent spectrum of plant with genetic and molecular technology. Two alternative approaches are used to genetically engineer these plant volatiles. One is based on the introduction of foreign genes encoding enzymes with activities that are missing in target plant, while the other is focused on modulating the expression of native genes.
Deng
Xiao-Jun
XJ
Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Molecular Ecology, Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200032, China. xjdeng@iris.sipp.ac.cn
Chen
Xiao-Ya
XY
Du
Jia-Wei
JW
D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D005818:Genetic Engineering; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D014835:Volatilization