Concepts in Metabolism

Abstract

Though the vitalist group initially used the term “organic” for compounds produced only by organisms, it was later on used for carbon compounds. Wohler (1928) discovered that urea, which otherwise was thought to be produced only in the living beings, could also be produced in the laboratory from ammonia and bicarbonate. In 1897, German chemists Eduard Buchner and Hans Buchner demonstrated that fermentation could be carried out by the “cell free extract” of yeast. These observations lead to development of the science of biochemistry. In early twentieth century, due to discovery of various metabolic pathways biochemistry was dominated by organic chemistry, followed by enzymology and bioenergetics. Some of the analytical techniques which made study of biochemistry possible included isolation of organelles, high-performance liquid chromatography, electrophoresis, use of radioactive tracers, plant transformation techniques using Agrobacterium tumefaciens, gene silencing, forward genetics, reverse genetics, mass spectrometry, and DNA microarray among others. With computational technology, it is now possible to have complete understanding of the interconnectivity of metabolic pathway. There is increasing availability of completely sequenced plant genomes and using recently available precise, RNA-guided editing tools, the redesigning of plant metabolism is feasible leading to metabolic engineering to meet the increasing demands of food as well as the reduce dependency on fossil fuels. Metabolic modeling and metabolic flux analysis has made it possible to understand the robustness of metabolism when plants grow under different and adverse environmental conditions. Studies have demonstrated how flux measurement in primary metabolism lead to advance understanding in primary regulation.