Plastidial Starch Phosphorylase in Sweet Potato Roots Is Proteolytically Modified by Protein-Protein Interaction with the 20S Proteasome

Post-translational regulation plays an important role in cellular metabolism. Earlier studies showed that the activity of plastidial starch phosphorylase (Pho1) may be regulated by proteolytic modification. During the purification of Pho1 from sweet potato roots, we observed an unknown high molecular weight complex (HX) showing Pho1 activity. The two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, mass spectrometry, and reverse immunoprecipitation analyses showed that HX is composed of Pho1 and the 20S proteasome. Incubating sweet potato roots at 45°C triggers a stepwise degradation of Pho1; however, the degradation process can be partially inhibited by specific proteasome inhibitor MG132. The proteolytically modified Pho1 displays a lower binding affinity toward glucose 1-phosphate and a reduced starch-synthesizing activity. This study suggests that the 20S proteasome interacts with Pho1 and is involved in the regulation of the catalytic activity of Pho1 in sweet potato roots under heat stress conditions

Cartan subalgebras for non-principal twisted groupoid C\u3csup\u3e⁎\u3c/sup\u3e-algebras

2020 Elsevier Inc. Renault proved in 2008 [22, Theorem 5.2] that if G is a topologically principal groupoid, then C0(G(0)) is a Cartan subalgebra in Cr⁎(G,Σ) for any twist Σ over G. However, there are many groupoids which are not topologically principal, yet their (twisted) C⁎-algebras admit Cartan subalgebras. This paper gives a dynamical description of a class of such Cartan subalgebras, by identifying conditions on a 2-cocycle c on G and a subgroupoid S⊆G under which Cr⁎(S,c) is Cartan in Cr⁎(G,c). When G is a discrete group, we also describe the Weyl groupoid and twist associated to these Cartan pairs, under mild additional hypotheses

Starch biosynthesis and modification of starch structure in transgenic plants

Starch is synthesised through the ADP-glucose pathway, involving the three enzymes ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase, starch synthase and starch branching enzyme. ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase is the key enzyme of the pathway, determining the flux of carbon into starch. It generates ADP-glucose, which is the substrate for the starch synthases, from glucose-1-phosphate and ATP releasing pyrophosphate. The enzyme is stimulated by 3-phosphoglycerate and inhibited through inorganic phosphate. The starch synthases, which catalyse the transfer of glucose from ADP-glucose to the nonreducing end of a growing alpha-1,4-glucan, are divided into two classes, the granule-bound starch synthases (GBSS) and the soluble starch synthases (SS). In both classes several isoforms have been described from many different plant species. The branching enzyme, which introduces branchpoints into the amylopectin, can also occur in different isoforms. Other enzymes present in plants, which also act on alpha-1,4-glucans, such as the starch phosphorylases, disproportionating enzyme and different starch hydrolases, might also be important for dertermining the starch structure and, therefore, its processibility. Many aspects of starch synthesis are not fully understood to date. Starch metabolism can be manipulated through genetic engineering, either by the ectopic expression of different heterologous genes, or through the repression of the expression of endogenous genes using antisense RNA technology. This not only allows the functional analysis of starch biosynthetic proteins, but also the manipulation of starch structure in order to widen its industrial applications. In this way many different potato lines have been generated, containing either different amounts of starch, or which synthesize a structurally modified starch. These structural changes relate to the amylose content, the phosphate content, or the gelatinisation and gelation characteristics of the starch