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Interdependence of threonine, methionine and isoleucine metabolism in plants: accumulation and transcriptional regulation under abiotic stress

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Abstract

Pathways regulating threonine, methionine and isoleucine metabolism are very efficiently interconnected in plants. As both threonine and methionine serve as substrates for isoleucine synthesis, their synthesis and catabolism under different developmental and environmental conditions also influence isoleucine availability. Together, methionine gamma-lyase and threonine deaminase maintain the isoleucine equilibrium in plants under varied substrate availabilities. Isoleucine and the two other branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) (leucine and valine) share four common enzymes in their biosynthesis pathways and thus are coordinately regulated. Induction of free amino acids as osmolytes in response to abiotic stress is thought to play a role in plant stress tolerance. In particular, the accumulation of BCAAs is induced many-fold during osmotic stress. However, unlike in the case of proline, not much research has been focused on understanding the function of the response involving BCAAs. This review describes pathways influencing branched-chain amino acid metabolism and what is known about the biological significance of their accumulation under abiotic stress. A bioinformatics approach to understanding the transcriptional regulation of the genes involved in amino acid metabolism under abiotic stress is also presented.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (MCB-0416567), the Binational Agriculture Research and Development Agency (US-3910-06) and the Triad Foundation to GJ, and National Science Foundation grants DBI-0501778 and DBI-0820405 to ZF.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, 1 Tower Road, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Vijay Joshi, Je-Gun Joung, Zhangjun Fei & Georg Jander

  2. United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Zhangjun Fei

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  1. Vijay Joshi
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  2. Je-Gun Joung
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Correspondence to Vijay Joshi.

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Joshi, V., Joung, JG., Fei, Z. et al. Interdependence of threonine, methionine and isoleucine metabolism in plants: accumulation and transcriptional regulation under abiotic stress. Amino Acids 39, 933–947 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-010-0505-7

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