Plant metabolic engineering transcription factors

Plant metabolic engineering has provided a means to improve polyphenol composition and levels. For example, tomato plants with enhanced flavonols have been recently developed through the overexpression of a transcription factor able to activate flavonol biosynthesis [30-32]. 

Grotewold, E. et al.. Engineering secondary metabolism in maize cells by ectopic expression of transcription factors. Plant Cell, 10, 721, 1998. 

Broun P. 2004. Transcription factors as tools for metabolic engineering in plants, Current Opinion Plant Biol 7 202-209. 

Sharma SB, Dixon RA. 2006. Metabolic engineering of proanthocyanidins by ectopic expression of transcription factors in Arabidopsis thaliana. Plant J 44 62-75. 

These experiments demonstrate that the ectopic expression of transcription factors is a viable method for engineering secondary metabolism in plants and plant cells. 

GROTEWOLD, E., CHAMBERLAIN, M., ST. CLAIRE, G., SWENSON, J., SIAME, B. A., BUTLER L. G., SNOOK, M, BOWEN, B Engineering secondary metabolism in maize cells by ectopic expression of transcription factors, Plant Cell, 1998,10,721-740. 

Xie, D.Y. et al. (2006) Metabolic engineering of proanthocyanidins through co-expression of anthocyanidin reductase and the PAPl MYB transcription factor. Plant J. 45, 895-907... 

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