Genome complexity: plant sugar vs, oil production (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 19, 2017, 23:24 (2806 days ago) @ David Turell

Plants make sugars easily with photosynthesis, but they can also make oils which is much more energy intensive. To do that sugar production is turned off using phosphorylation marks:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170317152721.htm

"Even plants have to live on an energy budget. While they're known for converting solar energy into chemical energy in the form of sugars, plants have sophisticated biochemical mechanisms for regulating how they spend that energy. Making oils costs a lot.

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"When sugar is low, this protein, known as KIN10, adds a phosphate group to as many as a thousand different proteins to change their functions in ways that ultimately increase sugar levels, Shanklin explained. As sugar levels increase KIN10's ability to phosphorylate proteins becomes inhibited, slowing down sugar production.

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"This protein, known as WRINKLED1, turns on the genes that make oil," Shanklin said.

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"To investigate the connection further, the team purified these proteins (KIN10 and WRINKLED1) and used a radioactive form of the element phosphorus to trace the phosphorylation reaction.

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"'When sugar is low, KIN10 phosphorylates WRINKLED1, marking it for destruction, so less WRINKLED1 is available to turn on oil production," Shanklin said. "Conversely, when sugar levels rise -- when times are good -- KIN10 is turned off and WRINKLED1 levels go up and drive oil production."

"The details of the study offer several possible ways for scientists to modify WRINKLED1 to try to "trick" plants into making more oil: One is to alter the sites that get phosphorylated; the other is to interfere with sites that enable the phosphorylated protein to enter the recycling machinery.

"'Nature makes genetic 'on-switches' short lived to enable rapid responses to changing metabolic conditions," said Shanklin. "So we don't need to make more of the oil-production 'on-switch,' we just need to prevent the protein from being degraded so it accumulates and we get stronger effects.'"

Comment: Plants show as much genome complexity as animals. Hard to imagine this developed stepwise.