The involvement of allosteric effectors and post‐translational modifications in the control of plant central carbon metabolism

Abstract

Plant metabolism is finely orchestrated to allow the occurrence of complementary and sometimes opposite metabolic pathways. In part, this is achieved by the allosteric regulation of enzymes, a cornerstone of plant research for many decades. The completion of the Arabidopsis genome and the development of the associated toolkits for Arabidopsis research moved the focus of many researchers to other fields. This is reflected by the increasing number of high-throughput proteomic studies, mainly focussed on post-translational modifications. However, follow up ?classical? biochemical studies to assess the functions and upstream signalling pathways responsible for such modifications have been scarce. In this work, we reviewed the basic concepts of allosteric regulation of enzymes involved in plant carbon metabolism, comprising photosynthesis and photorespiration, starch and sucrose synthesis, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis, the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway, and the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Additionally, we revisited the latest results on the allosteric control of the enzymes involved in these pathways. To conclude, we elaborated on the current methods for studying protein-metabolite interactions, which we consider will become crucial for discoveries in the future.