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Overexpression of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase from Jatropha curcas increases fatty acid accumulation in Nicotiana tabacum

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Abstract

Jatropha curcas L. is an excellent biofuel crop, which displays a high efficiency of carbon absorption, and seed oil of Jatropha can be efficiently processed to produce high-quality biodiesel. Plant phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylases (PEPCs) play important roles not only in initial fixation of atmospheric CO2 in C4 and Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants, but also in fatty acid biosynthesis in seeds of oil plants by regulating carbon partitioning. Here, we identified JcPEPC1 from J. curcas L. by homology cloning, and alignment analysis of protein sequence revealed JcPEPC1 was a plant C3-type PEPC, and shared high similarity to PEPC of castor oil plant Ricinus communis. We implemented detailed functional characterization of JcPEPC1 by expression analysis and transgenic tobacco. JcPEPC1 gene expressed in the leaves and seeds of J. curcas L., and remarkable increase of expression level was also detected at seed oil-accumulating stages. We overexpressed JcPEPC1 in tobacco, and showed the enzymatic activity of PEPC in transgenic plants was notably higher than wild type. Gas chromatography (GC) analysis elucidated the composition and total content of fatty acids were also altered. This study indicated JcPEPC1 played a fundamental role in fatty acid biosynthesis in Jatropha seeds. Our results proposed enhanced PEPC activity of Jatropha could improve biosynthesis of fatty acid, which implied critical functions in primary metabolism of non-photosynthetic PEPC.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the funds from Key Projects in the National Science and Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (No.2012BAD01B0703). We also acknowledge the Nonprofit Research Projects (RISF6153, RISF6141) and Country’s international cooperation projects (2011DFA30490). We thank Dr. Renying Zhuo (Chinese Academy of Forestry) for providing seeds of wild type tobacco. We are grateful to Dr. Peng Gao (National Research Council Canada) for the help of fatty acid analysis. We greatly appreciate two anonymous reviewers and the editor for critical reading and helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Subtropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, 311400, Hangzhou, China

    Zhengqi Fan, Jiyuan Li & Hengfu Yin

  2. Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, 100091, Beijing, China

    Mengzhu Lu & Xinlei Li

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  1. Zhengqi Fan
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  2. Jiyuan Li
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  3. Mengzhu Lu
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  4. Xinlei Li
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  5. Hengfu Yin
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Correspondence to Hengfu Yin.

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Communicated by U. Feller.

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Fan, Z., Li, J., Lu, M. et al. Overexpression of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase from Jatropha curcas increases fatty acid accumulation in Nicotiana tabacum . Acta Physiol Plant 35, 2269–2279 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-013-1264-3

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