Summary
Flower color is mainly determined by the structure of flavonoids, a group of secondary metabolites of plants. The biosynthetic pathway and the genes involved in the pathway are well characterized such that it is possible to change flower color by engineering the pathway by overexpression of heterologous genes and/or suppression of endogenous genes in transgenic plants. Trimming an unnecessary pathway by suppression of endogenous genes is often essential to achieve successful engineering of the pathway and the resultant accumulation of desirable compounds. RNAi by transcription of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a powerful and efficient method to command such suppression and is widely used for artificial gene suppression in transgenic plants.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Kumar, S., Franco, M., and Allen, G. C. (2006). Gene targeting: Development of novel systems for genome engineering in plants. In Floriculture, Ornamental and Plant Biotechnology (J. A. Teixeira da Silva, ed.), Vol. IV, Global Science Books, London, UK.
Varsha Wesley, S., Helliwell, C. A., Smith, N. A., et al. (2001). Construct design for efficient, effective and high-throughput gene silencing in plants Plant J. 27, 581–590.
Waterhouse, P., Graham, M. W., and Wang, M.-B. (1998). Virus resistance and gene silencing in plants can be induced by simultaneous expression of sense and antisense RNA Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 13959–13964.
Shahinul Islam, S. M., Miyazaki, T., Tanno, F., and Itho, K. (2005). Dissecting of gene function by RNA silencing Plant Biotechnol. 22, 443–446.
Forkmann, G., and Heller, W. (1999). Biosynthesis of flavonoids. In Polyketides and Other Secondary Metabolites Including Fatty Acid and Their Derivatives (U. Sankawa, ed.), Vol. 1, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 713–748.
Tanaka, Y., and Brugliera, F. (2006). Flower colour. In Flowering and Its Manipulation (C. Ainsworth, ed.), Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, pp. 201–239.
Tanaka, Y. (2006). Flower colour and cytochromes P450 Phytochem. Rev., 5, 283–291.
Tanaka, Y., Katsumoto, Y., Brugliera, F., and Mason, J. (2005). Genetic engineering in floriculture Plant Cell Tiss. Organ Cult. 80, 1–24.
Suzuki, K., Zue, H., Tanaka, Y., et al. (2000). Flower color modifications of Torenia hybrida by cosuppression of anthocyanin biosynthesis genes Mol. Breed. 6, 239–246.
Tsuda, S., Fukui, Y., Nakamura, N., et al. (2004). Flower color modification of Petunia hybrida commercial varieties by metabolic engineering Plant Biotechnol. 21, 377–386.
Nakamura, N., Fukuchi-Mizutani, M., Suzuki, K., Miyazaki, K., and Tanaka, Y. (2006). RNAi suppression of the anthocyanidin synthase gene in Torenia hybrida yields white flowers with higher frequency and better stability than antisense and sense suppression Plant Biotechnol. 23, 13–17.
Tzfira, T., and Citovsky, V. (2006). Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation of plants: Biology and biotechnology Curr. Opin. Biotechnol. 17, 147–154.
Mitsuhara, I., Ugaki M., Hirochika, H., et al. (1996). Efficient promoter cassettes for enhanced expression of foreign genes in dicotyledonous and monocotyledonous plants Plant Cell Physiol. 37, 49–59.
van Engelen, F. A., Molthoff, J. W., Conner, A. J., Nap, J., Pereira, A., and Stiekema, W. J. (1995). pBINPLUS: An improved plant transformation vector based on pBIN19 Transgenic Res. 4, 288–290.
Lazo, G. R., Stein, P. A., and Ludwig, R. A. (1991). A DNA transformation-competent Arabidopsis genomic library in Agrobacterium BioTechnology (NY) 9, 963–967.
Davuluri, G. R, van Tuinen, A., Fraser, P. D., et al. (2005). Fruit-specific RNAi-mediated suppression of DET1 enhances carotenoid and flavonoid content in tomatoes Nat. Biotechnol. 23, 825–826.
Aida, R., and Shibata, M. (2001). Transformation in torenia. In Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, Vol. 48, Transgenic Crops III (T. Nagata, W. Loerz, and J. Widholm, eds.), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 294–305.
Miki, D., and Shimamoto, K. (2004). Simple RNAi vectors for stable and transient suppression of gene function in rice Plant Cell Physiol. 45, 490–495.
Fukusaki, E., Kawasaki, K., Kajiyama, S., et al. (2004). Flower color modulations of Torenia hybrida by downregulation of chalcone synthase genes with RNA interference J. Biotechnol. 111, 229–240.
Ono, E., Fukuchi-Mizutani, M., Nakamura, N., et al. (2006). Yellow flowers generated by expression of the aurone biosynthetic pathway Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 11075–11080.
Nisihara, M., Nakatsuka, T., and Yamamura, S. (2005). Flavonoid components and flower color change in transgenic tobacco plants by suppression of chalcone isomerase gene FEBS Lett. 579, 6074–6078.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Humana Press, a part of Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Tanaka, Y., Nakamura, N., Togami, J. (2008). Altering Flower Color in Transgenic Plants by RNAi-Mediated Engineering of Flavonoid Biosynthetic Pathway. In: Barik, S. (eds) RNAi. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 442. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-191-8_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-191-8_17
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-874-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-59745-191-8
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols