The functional role of Adh in regulating susceptibility to abiotic stress and the synthesis of secondary metabolites was investigated in transgenic grapevine plants over- and underexpressing alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh). Plants were transformed with gene constructs containing a sense or antisense orientated grapevine VvAdh2 cDNA under the constitutive cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter. Plant...

The shikimate pathway is essential for production of a plethora of aromatic compounds in plants, bacteria, and fungi. Seven enzymes of the shikimate pathway catalyze sequential conversion of erythrose 4-phosphate and phosphoenol pyruvate to chorismate. Chorismate is then used as a substrate for other pathways that culminate in production of folates, ubiquinone, napthoquinones, and the aromatic ...

In the presence of the nonselective herbicide glyphosate (N-[phosphonomethyl]glycine), buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench) hypocotyls and cultured cells of Galium mollugo L. accumulate an organic acid, which was identified as shikimate by mass-spectroscopy of its methyl ester. After growth in 0.5 millimolar glyphosate for 10 days, G. mollugo cells contained shikimate in amounts of up to 10%...

To study the flow of carbon through the shikimate pathway in tobacco cell cultures with low and high yields of cinnamoyl putrescines, the cell cultures were treated with glyphosate. In the presence of glyphosate the levels of free shikimic acid were increased more than 300-fold by both cell lines. Despite of a normally 10-fold higher level of cinnamoyl putrescines, the high yielding cell line a...

Effect of various NaCI treatments (0, 50, 100, 200 and 300 mM) at different growth and development stages (tillering, boot swollen, flowering and anthesis) of two wheat cultivars  on the kinetic activity and PAGE electrophoretic pattern of leaf malate dehydrogenase was studied under greenhouse conditions. Ghods was salt-sensitive and Boolani was salt-tolerant. In general, in response to salinti...

The activity of the first enzyme of the shikimate pathway, 3-deoxy-d-arabino-heptulosonate 7-phosphate synthase, is demonstrated in extracts of Daucus carota cells grown in suspension culture. Maximum specific enzyme activity is found midway through the logarithmic growth of the culture; cells in lag and stationary phases of growth have lower enzyme levels. The enzyme is activated by tyrosine a...

The nonselective herbicide glyphosate (n-[phosphonomethyl]glycine) inhibited the light-induced accumulation of phenylpropanoid substances (chlorogenic acid, procyanidin, rutin, anthocyanin) in etiolated buckwheat hypocotyls 90% at 1 millimolar. Structurally related compounds, such as n,n-bis[phosphonomethyl]glycine, aminomethylphosphonate, methylglycine, and iminodiacetate, had little or no inh...