Vitamin E synthesis and response in plants

Yue Niu; Qian Zhang; Jiaojiao Wang; Yanjie Li; Xinhua Wang; Yan Bao

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.994058

Vitamin E synthesis and response in plants

Front Plant Sci. 2022 Sep 14:13:994058. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.994058. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yue Niu^{1

2}, Qian Zhang^{1

2}, Jiaojiao Wang^{1

2}, Yanjie Li², Xinhua Wang², Yan Bao^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center of Agri-Seeds, Joint Center for Single Cell Biology, School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
² School of Agriculture and Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Vitamin E, also known as tocochromanol, is a lipid-soluble antioxidant that can only be produced by photosynthetic organisms in nature. Vitamin E is not only essential in human diets, but also required for plant environment adaptions. To synthesize vitamin E, specific prenyl groups needs to be incorporated with homogentisate as the first step of reaction. After decades of studies, an almost complete roadmap has been revealed for tocochromanol biosynthesis pathway. However, chlorophyll-derived prenyl precursors for synthesizing tocochromanols are still a mystery. In recent years, by employing forward genetic screening and genome-wide-association approaches, significant achievements were acquired in studying vitamin E. In this review, by summarizing the recent progresses in vitamin E, we provide to date the most updated whole view of vitamin E biosynthesis pathway. Also, we discussed about the role of vitamin E in plants stress response and its potential as signaling molecules.

Keywords: VTE; biosynthesis; pathway; signal; stress; tocochromanol; tocopherol; vitamin E.

Publication types

Review