skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Transcript abundance on its own cannot be used to infer fluxes in central metabolism

Journal Article · · Frontiers in Plant Science
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [2]
  1. Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
  2. Leibniz Inst. for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben (Germany)
  3. Leibniz Inst. for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben (Germany); Univ. of Wurzburg (Germany)
  4. Bayer CropScience NV, Zwijnaarde (Belgium)
  5. Univ. of Wurzburg (Germany)

An attempt has been made to define the extent to which metabolic flux in central plant metabolism is reflected by changes in the transcriptome and metabolome, based on an analysis of in vitro cultured immature embryos of two oilseed rape (Brassica napus) accessions which contrast for seed lipid accumulation. Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) was used to constrain a flux balance metabolic model which included 671 biochemical and transport reactions within the central metabolism. This highly confident flux information was eventually used for comparative analysis of flux vs. transcript (metabolite). Metabolite profiling succeeded in identifying 79 intermediates within the central metabolism, some of which differed quantitatively between the two accessions and displayed a significant shift corresponding to flux. An RNA-Seq based transcriptome analysis revealed a large number of genes which were differentially transcribed in the two accessions, including some enzymes/proteins active in major metabolic pathways. With a few exceptions, differential activity in the major pathways (glycolysis, TCA cycle, amino acid, and fatty acid synthesis) was not reflected in contrasting abundances of the relevant transcripts. The conclusion was that transcript abundance on its own cannot be used to infer metabolic activity/fluxes in central plant metabolism. Lastly, this limitation needs to be borne in mind in evaluating transcriptome data and designing metabolic engineering experiments.

Research Organization:
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC0298CH10886
OSTI ID:
1259277
Journal Information:
Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol. 5; ISSN 1664-462X
Publisher:
Frontiers Research FoundationCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 52 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (52)

Improved scoring of functional groups from gene expression data by decorrelating GO graph structure journal April 2006
Carbon and Nitrogen Provisions Alter the Metabolic Flux in Developing Soybean Embryos journal January 2013
Carbon conversion efficiency and central metabolic fluxes in developing sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) embryos: Metabolic fluxes in sunflower embryos journal August 2007
Feedback regulation of plastidic acetyl-CoA carboxylase by 18:1-acyl carrier protein in Brassica napus journal June 2012
Systems‐based analysis of Arabidopsis leaf growth reveals adaptation to water deficit journal January 2012
Comprehensive developmental profiles of gene activity in regions and subregions of the Arabidopsis seed journal January 2013
Seed Architecture Shapes Embryo Metabolism in Oilseed Rape journal May 2013
Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of lipid in living plants journal October 2013
Comparative transcriptome and metabolite analysis of oil palm and date palm mesocarp that differ dramatically in carbon partitioning journal June 2011
Transcriptional regulation is insufficient to explain substrate‐induced flux changes in Bacillus subtilis journal January 2013
Role of Transcriptional Regulation in Controlling Fluxes in Central Carbon Metabolism of Saccharomyces cerevisiae : A CHEMOSTAT CULTURE STUDY journal November 2003
The fluxes through glycolytic enzymes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae are predominantly regulated at posttranscriptional levels journal September 2007
On the Discordance of Metabolomics with Proteomics and Transcriptomics: Coping with Increasing Complexity in Logic, Chemistry, and Network Interactions Scientific Correspondence journal January 2012
Proteins of Diverse Function and Subcellular Location Are Lysine Acetylated in Arabidopsis journal February 2011
Full-length transcriptome assembly from RNA-Seq data without a reference genome journal May 2011
What mRNA Abundances Can Tell us about Metabolism journal September 2012
Functioning of a metabolic flux sensor in Escherichia coli journal December 2012
RSEM: accurate transcript quantification from RNA-Seq data with or without a reference genome journal August 2011
Choreography of Transcriptomes and Lipidomes of Nannochloropsis Reveals the Mechanisms of Oil Synthesis in Microalgae journal April 2014
Analysis of Relative Gene Expression Data Using Real-Time Quantitative PCR and the 2−ΔΔCT Method journal December 2001
Biochemical and physiological studies of Arabidopsis thaliana transgenic lines with repressed expression of the mitochondrial pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase1 journal January 2003
Analysis of gene expression in resynthesized Brassica napus allotetraploids: transcriptional changes do not explain differential protein regulation journal January 2010
The metabolic flux phenotype of heterotrophic Arabidopsis cells reveals a flexible balance between the cytosolic and plastidic contributions to carbohydrate oxidation in response to phosphate limitation journal May 2014
Phosphoproteomic Analysis of Seed Maturation in Arabidopsis, Rapeseed, and Soybean journal March 2012
Rethinking metabolic control journal April 2009
Non-invasive Mapping of Lipids in Plant Tissue Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging book January 2009
Regulation of yeast central metabolism by enzyme phosphorylation journal January 2012
Ribosome and transcript copy numbers, polysome occupancy and enzyme dynamics in Arabidopsis journal January 2009
The Organization and Regulation of Plant Glycolysis journal June 1996
Identification of novel transcripts in annotated genomes using RNA-Seq journal June 2011
VANTED v2: a framework for systems biology applications journal January 2012
Positional cues for the starch/lipid balance in maize kernels and resource partitioning to the embryo: Positional cues for resource partitioning journal March 2005
Evidence of a key role for photosynthetic oxygen release in oil storage in developing soybean seeds journal June 2005
The Metabolic Architecture of Plant Cells: STABILITY OF CENTRAL METABOLISM AND FLEXIBILITY OF ANABOLIC PATHWAYS DURING THE GROWTH CYCLE OF TOMATO CELLS journal September 2002
Metabolic flux analysis as a tool in metabolic engineering of plants journal April 2008
Rubisco without the Calvin cycle improves the carbon efficiency of developing green seeds journal December 2004
Predictive Modeling of Biomass Component Tradeoffs in Brassica napus Developing Oilseeds Based on in Silico Manipulation of Storage Metabolism journal September 2012
Mitochondrial Metabolism in Developing Embryos of Brassica napus journal September 2006
Robustness of central carbohydrate metabolism in developing maize kernels journal July 2006
Systems analysis of metabolic phenotypes: what have we learnt? journal April 2014
Metabolic control analysis of developing oilseed rape ( Brassica napus cv Westar) embryos shows that lipid assembly exerts significant control over oil accumulation journal August 2012
mapman: a user-driven tool to display genomics data sets onto diagrams of metabolic pathways and other biological processes journal March 2004
TopHat: discovering splice junctions with RNA-Seq journal March 2009
Reconstruction of protein networks from an atlas of maize seed proteotypes journal November 2013
Metabolic Network Fluxes in Heterotrophic Arabidopsis Cells: Stability of the Flux Distribution under Different Oxygenation Conditions journal July 2008
A Genome-Scale Metabolic Model Accurately Predicts Fluxes in Central Carbon Metabolism under Stress Conditions journal July 2010
Opposing T cell responses in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis journal August 2019
Partitioning RNAs by length improves transcriptome reconstruction from short-read RNA-seq data journal January 2022
An AP2-type transcription factor, WRINKLED1, of Arabidopsis thaliana binds to the AW-box sequence conserved among proximal upstream regions of genes involved in fatty acid synthesis journal November 2009
Comparative deep transcriptional profiling of four developing oilseeds: Transcriptional profiling of oilseeds journal October 2011
Transcriptome and de novo analysis of Rosa xanthina f. spontanea in response to cold stress journal October 2021
Transcriptional regulation is insufficient to explain substrate‐induced flux changes in Bacillus subtilis text January 2013

Cited By (18)

Fluxomics links cellular functional analyses to whole-plant phenotyping journal April 2017
Identification of multiple lipid genes with modifications in expression and sequence associated with the evolution of hydroxy fatty acid accumulation in Physaria fendleri journal May 2016
Cannabis glandular trichomes alter morphology and metabolite content during flower maturation journal October 2019
Genome wide analysis of protein production load in Trichoderma reesei journal June 2016
Comparative transcriptome and metabolome analysis suggests bottlenecks that limit seed and oil yields in transgenic Camelina sativa expressing diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase journal December 2018
Identification of genes associated with ricinoleic acid accumulation in Hiptage benghalensis via transcriptome analysis journal January 2019
Modeling Rice Metabolism: From Elucidating Environmental Effects on Cellular Phenotype to Guiding Crop Improvement journal November 2016
Carbon Orientation in the Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum: The Effects of Carbon Limitation and Photon Flux Density journal April 2019
Transcriptome and metabolome reveal distinct carbon allocation patterns during internode sugar accumulation in different sorghum genotypes journal September 2018
Label-free deep shotgun proteomics reveals protein dynamics during tomato fruit tissues development journal March 2017
Common metabolic networks contribute to carbon sink strength of sorghum internodes: implications for bioenergy improvement journal November 2019
Integration of a constraint-based metabolic model of Brassica napus developing seeds with 13C-metabolic flux analysis journal December 2014
Quantifying plant phenotypes with isotopic labeling & metabolic flux analysis journal February 2016
Integrated analysis of transcriptomic and proteomic data from tree peony (P. ostii) seeds reveals key developmental stages and candidate genes related to oil biosynthesis and fatty acid metabolism journal October 2019
Correction to: Common metabolic networks contribute to carbon sink strength of sorghum internodes: implications for bioenergy improvement journal December 2019
Metabolic Plasticity and Inter-Compartmental Interactions in Rice Metabolism: An Analysis from Reaction Deletion Study journal July 2015
Multiscale Metabolic Modeling of C4 Plants: Connecting Nonlinear Genome-Scale Models to Leaf-Scale Metabolism in Developing Maize Leaves journal March 2016
Transcriptome Analysis of Stem and Globally Comparison with Other Tissues in Brassica napus journal September 2016