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PLANT PIGMENT EVOLUTION

Painting with betalains

Nature Plants volume 3, pages 852–853 (2017)Cite this article

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Investigations of plant metabolism reveal how an enzyme variant with reduced feedback sensitivity may allow plants to switch their pigment palettes.

Plants make diverse pigments that act as attractants for pollinators and seed dispersal agents, and provide protection against biotic and abiotic stresses. Most plant species produce anthocyanins, flavonoid pigments that appear red to blue, depending on pH. Plants belonging to the order Caryophyllales — which includes cacti, carnations, amaranths, ice plants, beets and many carnivorous species — are the exception to this rule. Most Caryophyllales produce a different class of pigments known as betalains. These red–violet and yellow pH-stable pigments are restricted to Caryophyllales, and never co-occur with anthocyanins1,2. The mutually exclusive occurrence of these two pigment types has intrigued evolutionary biologists and biochemists for over half a century. In a recent issue of New Phytologist Lopez-Nieves et al. report a breakthrough discovery — the identification of a missing early step in betalain biosynthesis with relaxed feedback sensitivity that probably enables the betalain tap to be turned on3.

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Fig. 1: Biosynthesis of anthocyanins and betalains.

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Acknowledgements

A.O. thanks A. Huang for providing Fig. 1, and acknowledges funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the John Innes Foundation.

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  1. Department of Metabolic Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, UK

    Anne Osbourn

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  1. Anne Osbourn
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Correspondence to Anne Osbourn.

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The author declares no competing financial interests.

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Osbourn, A. Painting with betalains. Nature Plants 3, 852–853 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-017-0049-x

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