Abstract
BackgroundDuckweed (Landoltia punctata) has the potential to remediate wastewater and accumulate enormous amounts of starch for bioethanol production. Using systematical screening, we determined that the highest biomass and starch percentage of duckweed was obtained after uniconazole application. Uniconazole contributes to starch accumulation of duckweed, but the molecular mechanism is still unclear.ResultsTo elucidate the mechanisms of high starch accumulation, in the study, the responses of L. punctata to uniconazole were investigated using a quantitative proteomic approach combined with physiological and biochemical analysis. A total of 3327 proteins were identified. Among these identified proteins, a large number of enzymes involved in endogenous hormone synthetic and starch metabolic pathways were affected. Notably, most of the enzymes involved in abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis showed up-regulated expression, which was consistent with the content variation. The increased endogenous ABA may up-regulate expression of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase to promote starch biosynthesis. Importantly, the expression levels of several key enzymes in the starch biosynthetic pathway were up-regulated, which supported the enzymatic assay results and may explain why there is increased starch accumulation.ConclusionsThese generated data linked uniconazole with changes in expression of enzymes involved in hormone biosynthesis and starch metabolic pathways and elucidated the effect of hormones on starch accumulation. Thus, this study not only provided insights into the molecular mechanisms of uniconazole-induced hormone variation and starch accumulation but also highlighted the potential for duckweed to be feedstock for biofuel as well as for sewage treatment.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12896-015-0198-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Duckweed (Landoltia punctata) has the potential to remediate wastewater and accumulate enormous amounts of starch for bioethanol production
Proteomic research of L. punctata after application of uniconazole The establishment of a L. punctata database based on transcriptome data contributed to protein identification
A total of 369,230 spectra were obtained from iTRAQ liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) proteomic analysis
Summary
Duckweed (Landoltia punctata) has the potential to remediate wastewater and accumulate enormous amounts of starch for bioethanol production. Uniconazole contributes to starch accumulation of duckweed, but the molecular mechanism is still unclear Renewable biofuels, such as bioethanol, derived from biomass is considered to be the most promising alternative to petroleum liquid fuels. By manipulating the growth conditions, such as pH, phosphate concentration, nutrient starvation, and light conditions, duckweed can accumulate starch up to 52.9 % of its DW [10, 12, 21, 22]. Because of these key attributes for a potential biofuel feedstock, duckweed has received much attention from academia, industry, and the government. There is some pilot-scale research on duckweed and its applications [23, 24]
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