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Enzymatic activities for lignin monomer intermediates highlight the biosynthetic pathway of syringyl monomers in Robinia pseudoacacia

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Abstract

Most of the known 4-coumarate:coenzyme A ligase (4CL) isoforms lack CoA-ligation activity for sinapic acid. Therefore, there is some doubt as to whether sinapic acid contributes to sinapyl alcohol biosynthesis. In this study, we characterized the enzyme activity of a protein mixture extracted from the developing xylem of Robinia pseudoacacia. The crude protein mixture contained at least two 4CLs with sinapic acid 4-CoA ligation activity. The crude enzyme preparation displayed negligible sinapaldehyde dehydrogenase activity, but showed ferulic acid 5-hydroxylation activity and 5-hydroxyferulic acid O-methyltransferase activity; these activities were retained in the presence of competitive substrates (coniferaldehyde and 5-hydroxyconiferaldehyde, respectively). 5-Hydroxyferulic acid and sinapic acid accumulated in the developing xylem of R. pseudoacacia, suggesting, in part at least, sinapic acid is a sinapyl alcohol precursor in this species.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Umezawa T. and Dr. Nakatsubo T. (Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto Uniyersity) for providing the substrates (5-hydroxyfelulic acid, 5-hydoroxyconiferyl aldehyde and 5-hydroxyconiferyl alcohol). This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Scientific Research (B) Grant Number 26292097 (Y.T.), JSPS KAKENHI Exploratory Research Grant Number 15K14774 (Y.T.) and JSPS KAKENHI Young Scientists (B) Grant Number 15K18724 (J.S.).

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  1. Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8581, Japan

    Jun Shigeto, Yukie Ueda, Shinya Sasaki, Koki Fujita & Yuji Tsutsumi

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  1. Jun Shigeto
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  2. Yukie Ueda
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  3. Shinya Sasaki
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  4. Koki Fujita
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  5. Yuji Tsutsumi
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Correspondence to Yuji Tsutsumi.

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Shigeto, J., Ueda, Y., Sasaki, S. et al. Enzymatic activities for lignin monomer intermediates highlight the biosynthetic pathway of syringyl monomers in Robinia pseudoacacia . J Plant Res 130, 203–210 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-016-0882-4

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