Dynamics of methionine biosynthesis

Methionine biosynthesis in plants provides the primary source of this essential amino acid. Early pioneering works characterised many of the steps involved in the methionine biosynthetic pathway and properties of the enzymes involved. They also showed that methionine biosynthesis was strictly controlled in higher plants and part of a larger, complex pathway that involves the biosynthesis of lysine, threonine and isoleucine. The adoption of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana has enabled us to isolate mto mutants that over-accumulate soluble methionine. Through the analysis of these mto mutants, valuable insight has been gained into the regulation and in vivo dynamics of the methionine biosynthetic pathway in higher plants. Each of the three mutant mto loci identified to date (mto1, mto2, mto3) disrupt different processes within the pathway and display distinct phenotypic profiles. They have also revealed that, in addition to the common feedback controls, the pathway is subject to changing temporal and spatial regulation over the course of the plant life cycle.