Fiat lux!

Abstract

The non-protein amino acid γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) accumulates in plants in response to a wide variety of environmental cues. Recent data point toward an involvement of GABA in tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle activity and respiration, especially in stressed roots. To gain further insights into potential GABA functions in plants, phylogenetic and bioinformatic approaches were undertaken. Phylogenetic reconstruction of the GABA transaminase (GABA-T) protein family revealed the monophyletic nature of plant GABA-Ts. However, this analysis also pointed to the common origin of several plant aminotransferases families, which were found more similar to plant GABA-Ts than yeast and human GABA-Ts. A computational analysis of AtGABA-T co-expressed genes was performed in roots and in stress conditions. This second approach uncovered a strong connection between GABA metabolism and glyoxylate cycle during stress. Both in silico analyses open new perspectives and hypotheses for GABA metabolic functions in plants.

Keywords: :

• GABA-T
• evolution
• glyoxylate cycle
• lipids
• respiration
• root
• stress

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Drs Anne Molitor and Danièle Werck-Reichhart for the critical reading of the manuscript.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material may be found here: www.landesbioscience.com/journals/psb/article/24274