Initial evaluation of sugarcane as a production platform for p-hydroxybenzoic acid.

Sugarcane (Saccharum hybrids) was evaluated as a production platform for p-hydroxybenzoic acid using two different bacterial proteins (a chloroplast-targeted version of Escherichia coli chorismate pyruvate-lyase and 4-hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA hydratase/lyase from Pseudomonas fluorescens) that both provide a one-enzyme pathway from a naturally occurring plant intermediate. The substrates for these enzymes are chorismate (a shikimate pathway intermediate that is synthesized in plastids) and 4-hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA (a cytosolic phenylpropanoid intermediate). Although both proteins have previously been shown to elevate p-hydroxybenzoic acid levels in plants, they have never been evaluated concurrently in the same laboratory. Nor are there any reports on their efficacy in stem tissue. After surveying two large populations of transgenic plants, it was concluded that the hydratase/lyase is the superior catalyst for leaf and stem tissue, and further studies focused on this pathway. p-Hydroxybenzoic acid was quantitatively converted to glucose conjugates by endogenous uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glucosyltransferases and presumably stored in the vacuole. The largest amounts detected in leaf and stem tissue were 7.3% and 1.5% dry weight (DW), respectively, yet there were no discernible phenotypic abnormalities. However, as a result of diverting carbon away from the phenylpropanoid pathway, there was a severe reduction in leaf chlorogenic acid, subtle changes in lignin composition, as revealed by phloroglucinol staining, and an apparent compensatory up-regulation of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase. Although product accumulation in the leaves at the highest level of gene expression obtained in the present study was clearly substrate-limited, additional experiments are necessary before this conclusion can be extended to the stalk.

Metabolic engineering of the chloroplast genome using the Echerichia coli ubiC gene reveals that chorismate is a readily abundant plant precursor for p-hydroxybenzoic acid biosynthesis.

p-Hydroxybenzoic acid (pHBA) is the major monomer in liquid crystal polymers. In this study, the Escherichia coli ubiC gene that codes for chorismate pyruvate-lyase (CPL) was integrated into the tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) chloroplast genome under the control of the light-regulated psbA 5' untranslated region. CPL catalyzes the direct conversion of chorismate, an important branch point intermediate in the shikimate pathway that is exclusively synthesized in plastids, to pHBA and pyruvate. The leaf content of pHBA glucose conjugates in fully mature T1 plants exposed to continuous light (total pooled material) varied between 13% and 18% dry weight, while the oldest leaves had levels as high as 26.5% dry weight. The latter value is 50-fold higher than the best value reported for nuclear-transformed tobacco plants expressing a chloroplast-targeted version of CPL. Despite the massive diversion of chorismate to pHBA, the plastid-transformed plants and control plants were indistinguishable. The highest CPL enzyme activity in pooled leaf material from adult T1 plants was 50,783 pkat/mg of protein, which is equivalent to approximately 35% of the total soluble protein and approximately 250 times higher than the highest reported value for nuclear transformation. These experiments demonstrate that the current limitation for pHBA production in nuclear-transformed plants is CPL enzyme activity, and that the process becomes substrate-limited only when the enzyme is present at very high levels in the compartment of interest, such as the case with plastid transformation. Integration of CPL into the chloroplast genome provides a dramatic demonstration of the high-flux potential of the shikimate pathway for chorismate biosynthesis, and could prove to be a cost-effective route to pHBA. Moreover, exploiting this strategy to create an artificial metabolic sink for chorismate could provide new insight on regulation of the plant shikimate pathway and its complex interactions with downstream branches of secondary metabolism, which is currently poorly understood.

Alternate energy-dependent pathways for the vacuolar uptake of glucose and glutathione conjugates.

Through the development and application of a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry-based procedure for measuring the transport of complex organic molecules by vacuolar membrane vesicles in vitro, it is shown that the mechanism of uptake of sulfonylurea herbicides is determined by the ligand, glucose, or glutathione, to which the herbicide is conjugated. ATP-dependent accumulation of glucosylated chlorsulfuron by vacuolar membrane vesicles purified from red beet (Beta vulgaris) storage root approximates Michaelis-Menten kinetics and is strongly inhibited by agents that collapse or prevent the formation of a transmembrane H(+) gradient, but is completely insensitive to the phosphoryl transition state analog, vanadate. In contrast, ATP-dependent accumulation of the glutathione conjugate of a chlorsulfuron analog, chlorimuron-ethyl, is incompletely inhibited by agents that dissipate the transmembrane H(+) gradient but completely abolished by vanadate. In both cases, however, conjugation is essential for net uptake because neither of the unconjugated parent compounds are accumulated under energized or nonenergized conditions. That the attachment of glucose to two naturally occurring phenylpropanoids, p-hydroxycinnamic acid and p-hydroxybenzoic acid via aromatic hydroxyl groups, targets these compounds to the functional equivalent of the transporter responsible for chlorsulfuron-glucoside transport, confirms the general applicability of the H(+) gradient dependence of glucoside uptake. It is concluded that H(+) gradient-dependent, vanadate-insensitive glucoside uptake is mediated by an H(+) antiporter, whereas vanadate-sensitive glutathione conjugate uptake is mediated by an ATP-binding cassette transporter. In so doing, it is established that liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry affords a versatile high-sensitivity, high-fidelity technique for studies of the transport of complex organic molecules whose synthesis as radiolabeled derivatives is laborious and/or prohibitively expensive.