Anthocyanins: from biosynthesis regulation to crop improvement

ABSTRACT

Anthocyanins are natural water-soluble pigments belonging to the large class of flavonoid compounds, which are crucial secondary metabolites with multiple activities. Anthocyanins ubiquitously exist in plants and play an important role notably in plant stress tolerance, such as resistance to low temperature, drought, high light as well as nutrient starvation. The basic signaling networks of anthocyanin biosynthesis in model plants have been characterized, but the whole regulatory mechanism still needs to be fully elucidated. Here we briefly review the research progress on anthocyanin biosynthesis, focusing on the implicated regulatory components, transcription factors (TFs) and environmental regulations. An overview of the essential contribution of anthocyanins to plant resistance to environmental stresses is also provided. The construction of plants enriched in anthocyanins might be a versatile way for crop improvement, and recent advances in this field are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Anthocyanins
• MBW complex
• transcription factors (TFS)
• stress tolerance
• genetic modification (gm)
• crop improvement

Accession numbers

Sequence data in this review article can be found in the GenBank/EMBL and JGI databases under the following accession numbers: At4CL1 (AT1G51680), AtAIR1 (AT2G31370), AtANS (AT4G22880), AtC4H (AT2G30490), AtCBF1 (AT4G25490), AtCHI (AT3G55120), AtCHS (AT5G13930), AtCOP1 (AT2G32950), AtCPC (AT2G46410), AtDFR (AT5G42800), AtEGL3 (AT1G63650), AtETC1 (AT1G01380), AtETC2 (AT2G30420), AtF3H (AT3G51240), AtGL2 (AT1G79840), AtGL3 (AT5G41315), AtHAT1 (AT4G17460), AtHY5 (AT5G11260), AtLBD37 (AT5G67420), AtLBD38 (AT3G49940), AtLBD39 (AT4G37540), AtMPK4 (AT4G01370), AtMYB11 (AT3G62610), AtMYB12 (AT2G47460), AtMYB75 (AT1G56650), AtMYB90 (AT1G66390), AtMYB111 (AT5G49330), AtMYB113 (AT1G66370), AtMYB114 (AT1G66380), AtMYBL2 (AT1G71030), AtPAL1 (AT2G37040), AtSPL3 (AT2G33810), AtSPL9 (AT2G42200), AtSUC1 (AT1G71880), AtTCP15 (AT1G69690), AtTRY (AT5G53200), AtTT8 (AT4G09820), AtTTG1 (AT5G24520), AtUF3GT (AT5G54060), AtUGT79B2 (AT4G27560), AtUGT79B3 (AT4G27570), AtUPL3 (AT4G38600), BoMYB2 (GU219987), BoMYB75 (JJMF01000032), BoMYB114 (JJMF01000136), BoTT8 (GU255867), MdBT2 (MDP0000151000), MdCOP1 (MJAX01000005), MdERF38 (MDP0000644807), MdHXK1 (MDP0000309677), MdHY5 (MJAX01000017), MdMYB1 (MDP0000259614), MdMYB12 (MJAX01000007), MdMYB114 (MJAX01000012), MdSIZ1 (MJAX01000004), MdTTG1 (MJAX01000014), PfWD (AB059642), PhAN2 (AB910267), PhAN11 (U94748), VvWDR1 (TC10687), VvMYBA1 (BAD18977), ZmC1 (GRMZM2G422750), ZmPAC1 (GRMZM2G058453), ZmPL1 (GRMZM2G701063), and ZmR1 (GRMZM5G822829).

Acknowledgments

We sincerely apologize to those authors whose works we could not cite in this review due to space limitations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Author contributions

All the authors contributed to discussion. X.S. and H.Z. wrote the article. X.S. and Q.Z. contributed to the literature collection. X.S. and Q.Z. also contributed to illustrate the artwork. H.Z. supervised the project.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grants 31870241 and 31600201 to H.Z.), and the Innovation Spark Fund of Sichuan University (Grant 2019SCUH0011 to H.Z.).