Plant Genome II Conference
Town & Country Conference Center, San Diego, CA, January, 1994.
PG-II: INTEGRATING LIPID METABOLISM INTO THE GENOME
INTEGRATING LIPID METABOLISM INTO THE GENOME
Tom Cheesbrough, Biology/Microbiology Dept., South Dakota State
University, Brookings, SD 57007
Acyl lipid metabolism in soybeans can be divided into 8
interconnecting pathways. These pathways contain a minimum of
125 enzymes distributed between the plastids, peroxysomes,
mitochondria,endoplasmic reticulum and cytoplasm. Genetic,
biochemical and physiological studies have provided detailed
information on several of these pathways, such as fatty acid and
phospholipid synthesis. Many of the enzymes in these pathways
have been purified, cloned or mutated, so their structure,
kinetic properties, and evolutionary relationships are known.
Other pathways, such as elongation and derivatization, are
largely unstudied. In these pathways, a few of the enzymes
involved have been characterized, and enzyme activities have been
postulated for the remaining steps based on in vivo labeling
studies. As part of the USDA's soybean Genome project, we have
consolidated this information into a database of lipid
metabolism. The database is designed to integrate information about the
enzymology, physiology and molecular biology of lipid metabolism.
This data forms a subset of a larger database, called Soybase,
which contains information on soybean genome structure, germplasm
resources, and phytopathology. The metabolic data base uses a
UNIX graphic interface which provides dynamic pathway diagrams,
detailed kinetic information on individual enzymes, bibliographic
references, links to physical and genetic maps, as well as
pointers to sequence data from GenBank and SWISS-PROT. This
resource will allow researchers to quickly find information such
as what a gene codes for, where it fits into metabolism, what
mutants exist for this locus, and where germplasm can be
obtained. The database may also be used as a predictive model
for designing metabolic engineering projects.
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