Award details

Functional Genomics and metabolomics of the versatile Acyl-CoA transferase super-family of enzymes in plants

Reference	BBS/E/J/0000A202
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Cathie Martin
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	John Innes Centre
Department	John Innes Centre Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	114,792
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	22/08/2005
End date	21/08/2008
Duration	36 months

Abstract

This project will analyse the function of enzymes belonging to the versatile acyl transferase (VAT) family in plants. These enzymes are involved in many branches of secondary metabolism, and are responsible for the synthesis of many important plant natural products including antioxidants, pharmaceuticals, phytoallexins, flavours and fragrances and pigments. Many of these natural products affect food quality directly. Others influence the ability of plants to tolerate biotic and abiotic stress. The limitation to development and use of the VAT resource is that the biochemical functions of most of the members are currently unknown. The aim of this project is to take a systematic approach to identifying the function of VAT family members to define new activities encoded by the Arabidopsis genome. We will investigate how such activities might be used for engineering plant metabolism for improved innate plant protection and for the production of bioactives as important plant ingredients in human and animal diets. The advantages of taking a systematic approach to this topic are that new enzyme activities with new potential applications will be identified and that general principles relating protein structure to function will be defined through studying the family as a whole. Such principles will allow predictions of the function of newly characterised genes from other species, in particular, crop plants. Case studies will also be used to determine whether VATs can modify plant natural product accumulation in useful ways.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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