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Over the past decade, advances in molecular biology have provided the impetus for a resurgence of interest in plant metabolism. At a general level, the potential for modifying the quantity or quality of harvestable crop products through genetic manipulation has provided an agronomic rationale for seeking a greater understanding of primary plant metabolism and its regulation. Moreover, the now facile techniques for transformation of many plant species and the consequential capacity to manipulate the amounts of specific individual enzymes within specific cell types provides an exciting direct approach for studying metabolic problems. Such transgenic plants are also becoming invaluable tools in studies at the interface between metabolism and other sub-disciplines such as physiology and ecology. The interest generated in plant metabolism by these developments has also encouraged the re-introduction of more conventional biochemical techniques for metabolic analysis. Finally, in common with other areas of cell biology, the wealth of information that can be obtained at the nucleic acid level has provided the stimulus for identification and characterisation of metabolic processes in far greater detail than previously envisaged. The result of these advances it that researchers now have the confidence to address problems in plant metabolism at levels not previously attempted. This book presents the proceedings of an international conference held on 9-11 January 1997 at St Hugh's College, Oxford under the auspices of the Phytochemical Society of Europe.
List of contents
1. Rubisco: attempts to reform a promiscuous enzyme.- 2. Insights into the active site of the plant alternative oxidase and its relationship to function.- 3. The many-faceted function of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase in plants.- 4. Folate synthesis and compartmentation in higher plants.- 5. Structure and function of plastid metabolite transporters.- 6. Integration of metabolism within non-photosynthetic plastids, and with the cytosol.- 7. Carbon flux to fatty acids in plastids.- 8. Compartmentation of metabolites between the subcellular compartments of leaves, the apoplast, the phloem and the storage tissue of different crop plants.- 9. Regulation of starch synthesis in storage organs.- 10. The integration of sucrose and fructan metabolism in temperate grasses and cereals.- 11. Expression of fructosyltransferase genes in transgenic plants.- 12. The application of transgenic technology to the study of sink metabolism in potato.- 13. Increasing the flux in a metabolic pathway: a metabolic control analysis perspective.- 14. Nitrate acts as a signal to control gene expression, metabolism and biomass allocation.
Report
`The book can be recommended to all scientists who are interested in a particular topic of plant metabolism...'
Journal of Plant Physiology, 157 (2000)
`The editors are to be congratulated on maintaining the high standards of previous Proceedings of the Phytochemical Society of Europe and producing a text which will be of value to students and researchers in plant biochemistry, biotechnology and physiology. I thoroughly recommend this book to relevant libraries within universities and research institutes where it will serve as a valuable reference source and stimulate more research into the fundamental aspects of plant carbohydrate metabolism.'
Plant Growth Regulation, 33(2001)
`To summarize, the information content of this book is high and timely. It will be useful, as the editors aim, as a state-of-the-art overview of the subject area. Both students and researchers will find it an essential source book.'
Biologia Plantarum, 43:4(2000)
