Abstract
Most cloned and/or characterized plant polyphenol oxidases (PPOs) have catechol oxidase activity (i.e., they oxidize o-diphenols to o-quinones) and are localized or predicted to be localized to plastids. As a class, they have broad substrate specificity and are associated with browning of produce and other plant materials. Because PPOs are often induced by wounding or pathogen attack, they are most generally believed to play important roles in plant defense responses. However, a few well-characterized PPOs appear to have very specific roles in the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites via both tyrosinase (monophenol oxidase) and catechol oxidase activities. Here we detail a few examples of these and explore the possibility that there may be many more “biosynthetic” PPOs.
Polyphenol oxidases (PPOs) are copper containing enzymes that are nearly ubiquitous among plants (). They have catechol oxidase activity (oxidation of o-diphenols to their corresponding o-quinones, EC 1.10.3.1) and many also have the ability to hydroxylate monophenols to o-diphenols (tyrosinase, EC 1.14.18.1; ; ). Throughout this review, the term tyrosinase will refer to the enzyme activity that oxidizes monophenols to o-diphenols. In the literature, the designation “PPO” sometimes includes laccases (EC 10.3.2). These copper containing enzymes are capable of oxidizing a wide range of aromatic compounds (including some utilized by PPO as defined above) and in plants are thought to have roles in radical coupling of monolignols to form lignin and flavanoid polymerization in the cell wall [see and the introduction of for reviews of laccase function in higher plants]. In the remainder of this review, laccases are not considered in the discussion of PPOs in plant specialized metabolism.
In plants, PPOs are perhaps best know for their role in post harvest browning: secondary reactions of PPO-generated o-quinones with cellular nucleophiles lead to the familiar discoloration of fresh produce and other plant materials (). In some cases, these quinone reactions may be useful: for example in the so-called fermentation process in tea production () or in helping to preserve protein in forage crops (; ). Generally, however, such browning reactions are thought of as a negative in food processing. Consequently, much research on PPO has been driven by this aspect of the enzyme. Because many PPOs are induced by wounding or pathogen attack, it has long been suggested that PPOs may play a role in defense responses. Indeed, it has been shown that PPO plays such a role in tomato (). Nonetheless, exactly what roles this nearly ubiquitous enzyme plays in normal plant growth and development are largely unknown. Because some PPOs have tyrosinase (hydroxylation of a monophenol to an o-diphenol) activity, it had long been suggested that PPO was responsible for the production of caffeic acid from p-coumaric acid (see for example ). It now seems likely that most plants actually use a cytochrome P450 enzyme for this conversion in vivo (; ). Still, the enzymatic properties of PPOs are potentially capable of providing important functions in plant specialized metabolism. Here we present a few cases where tyrosinase and/or catechol oxidase activities of specific PPOs have been proposed or demonstrated to have a crucial role in some aspect of plant specialized metabolism. Are these cases exceptional, or the tip of the iceberg?
BETALAIN BIOSYNTHESIS
There are several steps in betalain biosynthesis that might utilize either the tyrosinase and catechol oxidase activities of PPO (see for a detailed review). The first step in betalain biosynthesis is conversion of tyrosine to L-DOPA (L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine; Figure 1A). The resulting L-DOPA can be a substrate for DOPA 4,5-dioxygenase (DODA) that cleaves DOPA’s aromatic ring to form 4,5-seco-DOPA. The cleavage product spontaneously rearranges to form betalamic acid, which can condense with amino acids or other amine groups to form yellow betaxanthins. Condensation of betalamic acid with cyclo-DOPA forms the red betacyanin pigments. The catechol oxidase activity of PPO could be involved in the oxidation of DOPA to DOPA quinone that can spontaneously rearrange to form the cyclo-DOPA moiety of the red betacyanin betalains (see and references therein). However, recently a cytochrome P450, CYP76AD1, has been identified in beet via a bioinformatic approach that appears to carry out this reaction in vivo and can compliment the R mutant (produces yellow, but not red pigment) in beet and other species (). It has been suggested that CYP76AD1 could also be responsible for the initial tyrosine to L-DOPA oxidation as well. If this is the case in beet, however, the activity would be redundant with another, since silencing of CYP76AD1 results in loss of red, but not yellow pigments whose formation do not require cyclo-DOPA formation (). For the most part, the tyrosinase activity of PPO has been presumed to be the enzyme that mediates the initial tyrosine to L-DOPA conversion. Many studies show a correlation between tyrosinase enzyme activity and/or PPO gene expression and betalain pigment formation (see ; ; , for example). Further, a betaxanthin pathway can be recreated in tobacco cells using fungal PPO to carry out the tyrosine to L-DOPA step (). However, transcriptome analysis in beet did not find the abundance of PPO transcripts that might be expected for high betalain production (), nor to our knowledge have PPO gene silencing experiments demonstrated a role for PPO in vivo. Thus, despite longstanding speculation that PPO is involved in betalain biosynthesis, its role in cyclo-DOPA formation seems unlikely, and definitive demonstration of a role in the initial conversion of tyrosine to L-DOPA in vivo is lacking.
FIGURE 1
TYROSINE METABOLISM IN WALNUT
Although a role for PPO in L-DOPA formation in betalain biosynthesis is far from clear, work by
BIOSYNTHESIS OF 8-8’ LINKED LIGNANS IN CREOSOTE BUSH
Another likely case of the tyrosinase activity of a PPO being involved in biosynthesis of a specialized metabolite is in the formation of 8-8′ linked lignans in creosote bush (Larrea tridentata). Many of these compounds from creosote bush, e.g., nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA), have a number of bioactive properties including antiviral (
AURONE BIOSYNTHESIS
One of the most interesting and well-studied cases of PPO having a role in biosynthesis of specialized metabolites is the biosynthesis of the chalcone-derived yellow aurone pigments in snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus) flowers. It had been found that aurones (aureusidin and bracteatin) were formed from 2′,4′,6′,4-tetrahydroxychalcone (THC) or 2′,4′,6′,3,4-pentahydroxychalcone (PHC) upon incubation with extracts of yellow snapdragon flowers (
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The above examples could represent the tip of the iceberg with respect to PPO enzymes that have specific roles in biosynthesis of specialized metabolites. Much work on PPOs has focused on their negative impact on food quality due to the browning reactions they promote. It could be that most of these characterized “food quality” PPOs are involved in general defense responses, leaving the impression that most PPOs are not particularly specialized. In two of the cases above, the specialized roles of the PPOs were identified in the course of research focused on a particular aspect of specialized metabolism. There, relatively laborious approaches led to the identification of the PPOs involved. For example, for both larreatricin 3′-hydroxylase (
Statements
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Heather Green for helpful comments on the manuscript and Wayne Zeller for assistance in drawing chemical structures.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The Guest Associate Editor Dr. K. Judith Webb declares that, despite having collaborated with author Dr. Michael L. Sullivan, the review process was handled objectively and no conflict of interest exists.
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Summary
Keywords
betalains, aurones, tyrosine, metabolism, L-DOPA, tyramine, 8-8’ linked lignans, specialized metabolism
Citation
Sullivan ML (2015) Beyond brown: polyphenol oxidases as enzymes of plant specialized metabolism. Front. Plant Sci. 5:783. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00783
Received
10 November 2014
Accepted
17 December 2014
Published
14 January 2015
Volume
5 - 2014
Edited by
K. Judith Webb, Aberystwyth University, UK
Reviewed by
Norberto Daniel Iusem, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Alan Lloyd, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Copyright
© 2015 Sullivan.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Michael L. Sullivan, U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 1925 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA e-mail: michael.sullivan@ars.usda.gov
This article was submitted to Plant Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Plant Science.
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