Chassis Selection and Metabolic Fine-Tuning Enable Efficient in planta Betalain Production
Clicks: 1
ID: 316489
2026
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This
article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score —
reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
Reader Engagement
0.0
/100
1 views
0 readers
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Ranked #412 of 502 articles by views in Plant physiology and biochemistry : PPB
Most read
Least read
Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 502 in total.
Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet mintedCreate a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.
5
SUSD
one-off · no wallet required
Abstract
Synthetic biology enables efficient production of valuable compounds in biological systems, including plants that capture atmospheric CO2 to synthesize and accumulate abundant and diverse specialized metabolites. Most plant synthetic biology studies to produce specialized metabolites have primarily used Nicotiana benthamiana as an underpinning metabolic chassis, due to its rapid agroinfiltration method, leaving much of the metabolic potential of other plant species underexplored. Here we engineered three distinct plant chassis-Arabidopsis, tobacco and soybean-by stably introducing an optimized betalain biosynthetic pathway and analyzed their metabolic impacts. Betalains are tyrosine-derived pigments, which are used as natural red and yellow food dyes with rapidly growing demand due to a recent regulatory shift. We fine-tuned metabolic balances by redesigning the RUBY betalain construct (RUBYv2), adding an extra DODA enzyme ("pull") and modulating tyrosine precursor supply ("push") using two different promoters. The "push-and-pull (push+pull)" lines produced higher betalain levels than the "pull" lines in all three species, even exceeding those of beet roots. While Arabidopsis and tobacco "push+pull" lines driven by a strong promoter showed dwarfism, corresponding soybean lines did not show severe growth defects, suggesting greater tolerance of soybean to the engineered pathway. This study demonstrates that careful plant chassis selection, coupled with precise control of pathway expression, is essential for maximizing the yield of target specialized metabolites, such as betalain pigments, without impairing overall plant growth.
| Reference Key |
openalex_W7164032296
Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using
SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
|
|---|---|
| Authors | Soyoung Jung, Marcos V. V. de Oliveira, Ray Collier, Abou Yobi, Ruthie Angelovici, Shawn M. Kaeppler, Hiroshi Maéda |
| Journal | Plant physiology and biochemistry : PPB |
| Year | 2026 |
| DOI |
10.1093/plphys/kiag337
|
| URL | |
| Keywords | Keywords not found |
Citations
No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.