Evolutionary trajectory of transcription factors and selection of targets for metabolic engineering

Transcription factors (TFs) provide potentially powerful tools for plant metabolic engineering as they often control multiple genes in a metabolic pathway. However, selecting the best TF for a particular pathway has been challenging, and the selection often relies significantly on phylogenetic relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 2024-11, Vol.379 (1914), p.20230367
Main Authors: Lee, Yun Sun, Braun, Edward L, Grotewold, Erich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Evolution, Molecular
Metabolic Engineering
Phylogeny
Plant Proteins - genetics
Plant Proteins - metabolism
Plants - genetics
Plants - metabolism
Review
Transcription Factors - genetics
Transcription Factors - metabolism
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Summary:Transcription factors (TFs) provide potentially powerful tools for plant metabolic engineering as they often control multiple genes in a metabolic pathway. However, selecting the best TF for a particular pathway has been challenging, and the selection often relies significantly on phylogenetic relationships. Here, we offer examples where evolutionary relationships have facilitated the selection of the suitable TFs, alongside situations where such relationships are misleading from the perspective of metabolic engineering. We argue that the evolutionary trajectory of a particular TF might be a better indicator than protein sequence homology alone in helping decide the best targets for plant metabolic engineering efforts. This article is part of the theme issue 'The evolution of plant metabolism'.
ISSN:0962-8436
1471-2970
1471-2970
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2023.0367