About this Research Topic

Background

Amino acids occupy a privileged position in plant metabolism, not only as building blocks for proteins but also as precursors to a multitude of highly diverse—and sometimes very abundant—specialized metabolites. The amino acid-derived metabolites in plants include fundamental compounds such as polyamines, a vast number of alkaloids, anti-microbial peptides, amino acid analogs with signaling or allelopathic roles, and the plant hormones auxin, salicylic acid, and ethylene.

Furthermore, plants produce phenylpropanoids from the aromatic amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine, a large class of phenolic compounds that includes lignin, anthocyanins, flavonoids, and tannins. These compounds are so abundant that they represent around 30% of the Earth’s plant biomass. Since animals are unable to synthesize all 20 proteinogenic amino acids, plants also serve as a source of essential amino acids in the human diet. These essential amino acids are precursors of critical compounds such as the neurotransmitters dopamine, epinephrine, and GABA.

The absence of these pathways in animals makes them interesting targets for the discovery of novel herbicides and antimicrobial agents. Because of their rich amino acid-derived metabolism, plants have evolved sophisticated mechanisms to sense and fine-tune the biosynthesis and metabolic fate of amino acids. Additionally, plants must regulate the transport of amino acids between different cell compartments, as their biosynthetic pathways are typically located in the plastid, while protein biosynthesis and most specialized metabolic pathways are cytosolic.

Throughout their life cycle, plants need to control the trafficking of these costly molecules between source organs—typically photosynthetic tissue—and sink organs, notably roots and seeds, where amino acids can be stored in large concentrations. Therefore, amino acid metabolism represents a fundamental metabolic basis for sustaining plant growth and development in a continuously changing environment.

In the last two decades, evidence has shown that plant amino acid metabolism is regulated at the transcriptional, translational, post-translational, and allosteric levels, often in an environment-dependent manner. However, many of these processes remain poorly understood. Moreover, recent findings indicate that these regulatory mechanisms are significantly diverse between plant lineages, as different species have unique requirements to meet the demands of their specialized metabolism.

Given the role of amino acids in human nutrition—either directly as essential dietary constituents or as precursors to other nutraceuticals—understanding the regulation of amino acid metabolism in plants holds great potential for crop biofortification and the sustainable production of amino acid-derived nutraceuticals and chemicals.

This research topic aims to provide a platform for presenting and discussing the latest advancements in the regulation of amino acid metabolism in plants. Both original research articles and reviews addressing present and future challenges in the field are welcome.

Our collection will focus on, but is not limited to, the following areas:

- Transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms targeting enzymes involved in amino acid biosynthesis or catabolism.
- Metabolite-mediated feedback regulation and metabolite-sensing mechanisms in amino acid metabolism, and their connections with plant development and environmental responses.
- Evolution of amino acid metabolic regulation in different plant lineages.
- Regulation of amino acid metabolism through subcellular compartmentalization.
- Synthetic biology engineering of amino acid metabolism in plants for crop biofortification or chemical production.
- New methods and tools for studying amino acid metabolism and its regulation.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: amino acid metabolism, plant specialized metabolites, metabolite sensing, transcriptional regulation, synthetic biology in plants, crop biofortification

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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