Polyamines in the context of metabolic networks

Polyamines (PAs) are essential biomolecules that are known to be involved in the regulation of many plant developmental and growth processes as well as their response to different environmental stimuli. Maintaining the cellular pools of PAs or their metabolic precursors and by-products is critical to accomplish their normal functions. Therefore, the titre of PAs in the cells must be under tight regulation to enable cellular PA homeostasis. Polyamine homeostasis is hence achieved by the regulation of their input into the cellular PA pool, their conversion into secondary metabolites, their transport to other issues/organs, and their catabolism or turnover. The major contributors of input to the PA pools are their in vivo biosynthesis, interconversion between different PAs, and transport from other tissues/organs; while the output or turnover of PAs is facilitated by transport, conjugation and catabolism. Polyamine metabolic pathways including the biosynthesis, catabolism/turnover and conjugation with various organic molecules have been widely studied in all kingdoms. Discoveries on the molecular transporters facilitating the intracellular and intercellular translocation of PAs have also been reported. Numerous recent studies using transgenic approaches and mutagenesis have shown that plants can tolerate quite large concentrations of PAs in the cells; even though, at times, high cellular accumulation of PAs is quite detrimental, and so is high rate of catabolism. The mechanism by which plants tolerate such large quantities of PAs is still unclear. Interestingly, enhanced PA biosynthesis via manipulation of the PA metabolic networks has been suggested to contribute directly to increased growth and improvements in plant abiotic and biotic stress responses; hence greater biomass and productivity. Genetic manipulation of the PA metabolic networks has also been shown to improve plant nitrogen assimilation capacity, which may in turn lead to enhanced carbon assimilation. These potential benefits on top of the widely accepted role of PAs in improving plants’ tolerance to biotic and abiotic stressors are invaluable tools for future plant improvement strategies.