Genetic engineering carotenoids

Biosynthesis of carotenoids with genetically engineered hosts . Patent PCT/US91/ 01458. 

HAUPTMANN R, ESCHENFELDT w H, ENGLISH J and BRINKHAUS F L (1997) Enhanced carotenoid accumulation in storage organs of genetically engineered plants , US patent 5618988. 

The case of canola is extraordinary because of the very high level accumulations (50-fold) of leaf-type carotenoids in seeds when the gene was introduced under the seed-specific promoter, napin. The exalbuminous seeds of canola differ from those of genetically engineered rice cereal grains in that they have chloroplasts, which may explain the capacity for hyperaccumulation of carotenoids. 

Sandmann, G., Rbmer, S., and Eraser, P.D., Understanding carotenoid metabolism as a necessity for genetic engineering of crop plants, Metabol. Eng. 8, 291, 2006. DellaPenna, D., Plant metabolic engineering. Plant Physiol. 125, 160, 2001. Wurtzel, E.T. and Grotewold, E., Plant metabolic engineering, in Encyclopedia of... 

Matthews, P.D., Luo, R., and Wurtzel, E.T., Maize phytoene desaturase and zetacar-otene desaturase catalyze a poly-Z desaturation pathway implications for genetic engineering of carotenoid content among cereal crops, J. Exp. Botany 54, 2215, 2003. 

Romer, S. et al.. Genetic engineering of a zeaxanthin-rich potato by antisense inactivation and co-suppression of carotenoid epoxidation, Metabol. Eng. 4, 263, 2002. 

Sandmann, G. 2003. Novel carotenoids genetically engineered in a heterologous host. Chem Biol 10 478 79. 

The analysis of tomato color mutants found in Solanum lycopersicum or in crosses with related wild species, as well as genetic engineering studies have clarified enormously the bios3uithetic pathway of carotenoids. Carotenoids, as other plastid isoprenoids, derive from isopentenyl diphosphate (IPP). IPP used in the synthesis of these compounds may arise at some developmental stages partly from the mevalonic (MVA) pathway [23], but it is mainly synthesized through the methyler-ythritol-4-phosphate (MEP) pathway [24]. The first enzyme of this pathway. 

Several attempts have been made to genetically manipulate carotenoid biosynthesis in crop plants, thereby inaeasing their nutritional value, but care has to be taken not to disturb other isoprenoid pathways (Sandmaim, 2001). In 2000, Romer et al. modified the carotenoid pathway in tomato to produce different carotenoid products. Ye et al. (2000) engineered a carotenogenic... 

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