Metabolic engineering of defense pathways from cruciferous plants
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Different families of plants have evolved unique defensive strategies to protect themselves from pests and pathogens. For example, cruciferous plants, such as broccoli (Brassica oleracea) and turnip (Brassica rapa), use a set of small molecule biopesticides, called phytoalexins, to inhibit pathogenic fungi. Engineering phytoalexin biosynthesis into commodity crop plants, which do not make these molecules, could be an effective and more efficient strategy for curbing disease. Traditional pesticides are over applied, less than 1% of a sprayed molecule reaches its target. Plants engineered to synthesize phytoalexins could produce their own biopesticides specifically when under pathogen attack. However, before phytoalexin biosynthesis can be engineered, metabolic pathways for making these molecules must first be discovered. In this dissertation, I describe my efforts to expand the number of phytoalexins which can be engineered for enhanced plant defense, with a focus on sulfur containing phytoalexins from cruciferous plants. First I will describe the identification of 7 genes from a previously unsequenced plant, Nasturtium officinale, for the biosynthesis of phenethyl-based phytoalexins. Then I discuss the metabolic engineering of this pathway and novel pathways to create 9 new-to-nature phytoalexins in plants, two of which are more potent anti-fungals than natural molecules. Finally I will describe two enzymes which can cyclize phenethyl-based phytoalexins towards more anti-microbial products. This work not only expands the genetic toolkit for engineering plant defense, but also increases our understanding of the biosynthesis and evolution of plant defense metabolism.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2018; ©2018 |
| Publication date | 2018; 2018 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Calgaro-Kozina, Amy Marie |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Sattely, Elizabeth |
| Thesis advisor | Sattely, Elizabeth |
| Thesis advisor | Spormann, Alfred M |
| Thesis advisor | Swartz, James R |
| Degree committee member | Spormann, Alfred M |
| Degree committee member | Swartz, James R |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Chemical Engineering. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Amy Marie Calgaro-Kozina. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Chemical Engineering. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2018. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2018 by Amy Marie Kozina
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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