Redox control of plant energy metabolism: The complex intertwined regulation of redox and metabolism in plant cells

Abstract

Maintenance of the cellular redox status is crucial both to keep metabolic processes running and to prevent oxidation of cellular components by reactive oxygen species under fluctuating environments. The plastid is a plant-specific organelle in which considerable redox-active reactions occur and therefore the redox status in this energy organelle, as well as that of the mitochondria, must be tightly regulated. Plants employ multiple mechanisms to actively regulate energy metabolism in response to the redox status and to integrate subcellular redox signals to orchestrate redox status at the cellular level. In this article, we describe the redox regulation of the major flux bearing reactions in these two energy organelles and survey recent advances concerning interorganellar redox communication. The sum action of this complex regulatory network allows both the fine-tuning of metabolic activities for cellular redox homoeostasis and that of redox to allow optimal metabolic function.