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木质和其他生物纤维构成的植物细胞壁是生物燃料生产原料的主要形式。这些生物纤维经消化产生糖，再经发酵产生生物燃料。但是植物可以阻止被消化，例如植物细胞壁具有酰基化合物能阻止纤维转化成糖，酰基还可以形成网络使细胞壁异常强韧。美国能源部Brookhaven国家实验室的科学家从拟南芥和白杨(Populus trichocarpa)中发现一个基因家族可以控制细胞壁-酰基的结合。通过调节这些基因，科学家可以使工程作物更容易生产生物燃料。 Chang-Jun Liu及同事观察到一些基因对，它们与基因组中的临近基因反向重叠。这些基因产生的RNA彼此结合形成分子Velcro，因此这对基因中的一个基因表达就会抑制它的搭档。Liu认为研究这一反义调节机制将帮助科学家调节酰基产生。 推荐原始出处： Plant Molecular Biology doi:10.1007/s11103-009-9482-1 BAHD superfamily of acyl-CoA dependent acyltransferases in Populus and Arabidopsis : bioinformatics and gene expression Xiao-Hong Yu1, Jin-Ying Gou1 and Chang-Jun Liu1 (1) Department of Biology, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973, USA Plant acyl-CoA dependent acyltransferases constitute a large specific protein superfamily, named BAHD. Using the conserved sequence motifs of BAHD members, we searched the genome sequences of Populus and Arabidopsis, and identified, respectively, 94- and 61-putative genes. Subsequently, we analyzed the phylogeny, gene structure, and chromosomal distribution of BAHD members of both species; then, we profiled expression patterns of BAHD genes by “in silico” northern- and microarray-analyses based on public databases, and by RT-PCR. While our genomic- and bioinformatic- analyses provided full sets of BAHD superfamily genes, and cleaned up a few existing annotation errors, importantly it led to our recognizing several unique Arabidopsis BAHD genes that inversely overlapped with their neighboring genes on the genome, and disclosing a potential natural anti-sense regulation for gene expressions. Systemic gene-expression profiling of BAHD members revealed distinct tissue-specific/preferential expression patterns, indicating their diverse biological functions. Our study affords a strong knowledge base for understanding BAHD members’ evolutionary relationships and gene functions implicated in plant growth, development and metabolism. (责任编辑：Doctor001) |
