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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Ithaca, New York » Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health » Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #368383
Research Project: Genetics, Epigenetics, Genomics, and Biotechnology for Fruit and Vegetable Quality

Location: Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research

Title: Toward the 'golden' era: the status in uncovering the regulatory control of carotenoid accumulation in plants

Author
item SUN, TIANHU - Cornell University
item Li, Li

Submitted to: Plant Science
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/1/2019
Publication Date: 11/5/2019
Citation: Sun, T., Li, L. 2019. Toward the 'golden' era: the status in uncovering the regulatory control of carotenoid accumulation in plants. Plant Science. 290:110343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2019.110331.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2019.110331

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Carotenoids are essential pigments to plants and important health-promoting natural products to humans. Carotenoids as both primary and specialized metabolites fulfill multifaceted functions in plants. As such, carotenoid accumulation (a net process of biosynthesis, degradation and sequestration) is subjected to complicated regulation throughout plant life cycle in responses to developmental and environmental signals. Investigation of transcriptional regulation of carotenoid metabolic pathway genes remains the main focus in understanding the regulatory control of carotenoid accumulation. While discovery of bona fide carotenoid metabolic regulators is still challenging, the recent progress of identification of various transcription factors and regulators helps us to construct hierarchical regulatory networks of carotenoid accumulation. The late elucidation of carotenoid regulatory mechanisms at protein and storage levels provides some insights into posttranslational regulation of carotenogenic enzymes and carotenoid sequestration in plastid sink. This review briefly describes the pathways and main flux-controlling steps for carotenoid accumulation in plants. It highlights recent understanding of the regulatory mechanisms underlying carotenoid accumulation at both transcriptional and posttranslational levels. It also discusses the opportunities to expand toolbox for shedding light upon the intrinsic regulation of carotenoid accumulation in plants.