Complete annotation of maize B vitamin pathway genes and enzymes published

The B vitamins and the cofactors derived from them are essential for all forms of life. B vitamin synthesis in plants is therefore crucial to plants themselves as well as to humans and animals, which cannot make most B vitamins themselves and so must obtain them from the diet.

A full annotation of all maize and Arabidopsis genes in the seven plant B vitamin pathways (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenate, pyridoxine, biotin, folate) is now published online in the Darwin review series of the Journal of Experimental Botany (Gerdes et al., PMID:22915736 also available from http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/08/22/jxb.ers208.long)

The annotations include cellular compartmentation (location) information on the pathway enzymes, based on published experimental data and/or bioinformatics. All the data are encoded in the SEED database (http://pubseed.theseed.org/seedviewer.cgi?page=PlantGateway). The review itself and the encoded pathways also specifically identify enigmatic or missing reactions, enzymes, and transporters. The SEED-encoded B vitamin pathway collection is a publicly available, expertly curated, one-stop resource for metabolic reconstruction and modeling.

The work was supported by an award (IOS-1025398) from the NSF Plant Genome Research Program.

The authors of this review article and the pathway database curators are collaborating on the curation of the B vitamin pathways in the Gramene Database.

Author: Andrew Hanson, University of Florida.

Dated: August 28, 2012

Ref: PubMed ID 22915736