Storage Protein Modification for the Improvement of Seed Protein Quality
Increasing Methionine Content
Perhaps the most successful approach for improving the quality of sulfur amino
acids in seed crops has been the introduction of foreign genes encoding naturally
sulfur-rich proteins, such as the 2S albumin from Brazil nut (BNA) (
Bertholletia
excelsa), which contains 18% methionine and 8% cysteine. BNA has been used to increase the methionine content of several crops (Tabe and Higgins, 1998).
One of the first successful applications of this technology was with
Brassica
napus (rape/Canola) seeds. Rape seed is not particularly sulfur amino aciddeficient,
but it was considered a good target for sulfur amino acid modification,
because the processed meal is often mixed with (the more sulfur deficient)
soybean in animal feeds. Altenbach
et al. (1989, 1992) expressed BNA in transgenic
Canola under control of the seed-specific
Phaseolus vulgaris phaseolin promoter.
BNA accumulated in a properly processed form up to 4% of total seed protein,
resulting in up to a 33% increase in seed methionine content (Altenbach
et al.,
1992).
Grain legumes are deficient in methionine and are consequently good candidates
for protein improvement by transgenic approaches. When BNA was
expressed in narbon bean (
Vicia narbonensis) under control of the
Vicia faba legumin B4 promoter, it was correctly processed and accumulated in the
2S albumin fractionwhere it accounted for up to 3% of total seed protein at maturity.
This resulted in as much as a threefold increase in total seed methionine (Saalbach
et al., 1995), which could allow production of feedstuffs that do not require
methionine supplementation (Tabe and Higgins, 1998). When expressed in soybean,
BNA accumulated to more than 10% of total seed protein, resulting in up to
a 50% increase in seed methionine content (R. Yung, personal communication).
However, this high expression level was accompanied by downregulation of the
endogenous sulfur-rich proteins, such as the Bowman-Birk proteinase inhibitor
and albumins, including leginsulin. Leginsulin is a homologue of pea albumin A1
(Watanabe
et al., 1994), a protein that is reduced in sulfur-starved peas (Higgins
et al., 1986). Concomitantly, endogenous sulfur-poor storage proteins were found
to be substantially increased in BNA-expressing soybean lines.
The most prominent
of these was the sulfur-free β-subunit of conglycinin (7S globulin), which
accumulated to 30% of total seed protein, compared with 5% in control plants.
These changed patterns of storage protein synthesis were similar to those
observed during conditions of sulfur starvation. Furthermore, the changes could
be alleviated, and even higher levels of BNA accumulated, when cotyledons of
BNA-synthesizing soybean plants were cultured in the presence of exogenous
methionine. Despite the observed increase of methionine in the transgenic soybean
seeds, total seed sulfur remained virtually unchanged relative to control
plants. Collectively, these data suggested that there is a limited pool of sulfur
amino acids in soybean cotyledons, such that it is not possible to support an
additional sulfur sink.
The identification of BNA as a major allergen of Brazil nut and the fact that this
allergenicity was conveyed to the transgenic soybean (Nordlee
et al., 1996) diminished
the potential transgenic use of BNA in soybean, which is used as an
ingredient in many processed foods. Although BNA allergenicity may be less
problematic in animal feed, this issue reduced the incentive to further develop
BNA-containing seed crops for human consumption. Nevertheless, the common
bean, P. vulgaris, a major food source in Latin America, Africa, and India, has since
been targeted for methionine enrichment with BNA (Aragao
et al., 1999). Using
the constitutive gene expression conferred by a double CaMV 35S promoter, several transgenic lines were reported that contain significantly elevated seed
methionine (Aragao
et al., 1999).
In Australia, the grain legume,
Lupinus angustifolium, is an important component
of ruminant and nonruminant livestock feed. Lupin seed proteins are
deficient in methionine and cysteine, and in order to increase animal productivity,
pure methionine is routinely supplemented into the diets of pigs and poultry.
Nonruminants are able to synthesize cysteine as long as adequate methionine is
present.
Administration of supplemental methionine has been shown to produce
a 30–50% increase in wool growth in sheep (Pickering and Reis, 1993), but
methionine supplementation is not practical in ruminants because it is lost due
to destruction and incorporation into rumen microbial proteins. Molvig
et al. (1997) expressed the sunflower seed albumin (SSA) protein in transgenic lupin
as a means to increase methionine and cysteine intake in sheep. Lupin grain is fed
to sheep in times of reduced pasture availability. SSA is reasonably stable in the
rumen, and it is rich in methionine (16%) and cysteine (8%) (Kortt
et al., 1991;
Mcnabb
et al., 1994). Although no overall increase in the total amount of seed
sulfur was found, there was a significant increase in amino acid-bound sulfur.
This consisted of a 94% increase in methionine and a 12% decrease in cysteine
levels. The unexpected decrease in cysteine suggested that in the presence of a
new sink for organic sulfur, the expression of other sulfur amino acid-containing
proteins was altered and that, as with expression of BNA in soybean, the sulfur
amino acid supply was limiting (Tabe and Droux, 2002). In preliminary feeding
trials with rats, the transgenic seed was significantly better than wild type in terms
of weight gain and protein digestibility (Molvig
et al., 1997). In subsequent trails
with Merino sheep, the transgenic lupin seed diet was demonstrated to result in
a 7% increase in weight gain and an 8% increase in wool growth as compared to a
diet of nontransgenic lupin (White
et al., 2001).
The possibility of improving rice protein quality using an SSA gene as a
methionine and cysteine donor was investigated (Hagan
et al., 2003). The SSA
was modified with an ER retention signal and placed under control of the
endosperm-specific wheat high-molecular weight (HMW) glutenin promoter.
Although SSA accumulated to 7% of total seed protein, there was no overall
change in seed sulfur amino acid content. Changes in the abundance of endogenous
storage and nonstorage proteins indicated that synthesis of the transgenic
protein simply caused a redistribution of limiting sulfur resources (Hagan
et al.,
2003). It appears that rice, in common with soybean, may not have the capacity to
support a transgenic sulfur sink, and that the high-level accumulation of transgenic
sulfur-rich proteins creates a condition analogous to sulfur starvation in the
seed. Depending on sulfur supply, the relative abundance of storage proteins that
vary in sulfur content fluctuates in order to maintain nitrogen homeostasis
(Tabe
et al., 2002). Although the intricacies of the regulatory mechanisms are
only beginning to be understood (Tabe
et al., 2002), it is not surprising that the
introduction of a new sulfur sink can cause multifaceted and unpredicted changes
in protein synthesis in different plants that vary in storage protein composition.
Maize is not markedly deficient in methionine, but it is a candidate for sulfur
amino acid improvement because it is often mixed in animal feeds with soybean meal. In addition, most varieties of domestic corn contain relatively low levels
of the methionine-rich 10- and 18-kDa δ-zein proteins (Swarup
et al., 1995).
The
d-zeins, which contain 23% or more methionine, are potentially useful proteins for
increasing sulfur amino acid content in maize and other crop plants. The maize
10-kDa δ-zein, which is encoded by the single copy
Dzs10 gene, accumulates
at low levels during endosperm development in most maize lines (Cruzalvarez
et al., 1991; Schickler
et al., 1993). This is due to a trans-acting posttranscriptional
regulation mechanism linked to the
dzr1 locus (Benner
et al., 1989). Initial attempts
to overexpress
Dzs10 in maize resulted in accumulation of δ-zein at up to 0.9% of
total seed protein and variable increases in seed methionine (Anthony
et al., 1997).
Similar to SSA expression in rice and BNA expression in soybean (Anthony
et al.,
1997), potential gains from accumulation of the transgenic protein were often
nullified by reduction in the levels of endogenous high-sulfur zeins. Lai and
Messing (2002) created transgenic maize expressing a chimeric gene consisting
of the coding region of
Dzs10 and the promoter and 50 untranslated region of the
highly expressed 27-kDa γ-zein, which is not subject to the same posttranscriptional
regulation as
Dzs10. Although the effects on endogenous high-sulfur zeins
were not reported, uniformly high levels of 10-kDa δ-zein and methionine were
observed and maintained over five backcross generations. Initial feeding studies
with chicks suggested that the transgenic grain was as effective as nontransgenic
grain supplemented with free methionine. Consequently, this product could eventually
lead to corn-based rations that do not require methionine supplementation
(Lai and Messing, 2002).
Coexpression of β-zein and δ-zein appears to enhance accumulation of the
methionine-rich δ-zein. During PB formation in maize endosperm, the β- and
γ-zeins associate in the ER, forming a continuous layer around a central core of
a- and δ-zeins (Esen and Stetler, 1992; Lending and Larkins, 1989). An interaction
between α- and γ-zeins was demonstrated (Coleman
et al., 1996), but the association
of β- and δ-zeins is not well understood. Based on studies where genes
encoding β- and δ-zeins were coexpressed in transgenic tobacco, there is an
interaction between these proteins that helped increase δ-zein accumulation.
When expressed individually, the β-zein and 10-kDa δ-zein formed unique,
ER-derived, PBs in leaf cells. However, when coexpressed, 10-kDa δ-zein colocalized
with β-zein and accumulated at a fivefold higher level (Bagga
et al., 1997).
When the 18-kDa δ- and β-zeins were coexpressed, there was a 16-fold increase
in δ-zein accumulation (Hinchliffe and Kemp, 2002). The increased accumulation
of δ-zein was shown to result from a dramatic decrease in the rate of its degradation
when β-zein was present (Hinchliffe and Kemp, 2002). There are no reports
where this combination of proteins was tested in seeds. However, only modest
increases in methionine and cysteine were observed when the β-zein was
expressed alone in transgenic soybean (Dinkins
et al., 2001).
The methionine content of seeds can also be improved by reducing the abundance
of endogenous sulfur-poor proteins. This strategy takes advantage of the
plant’s homeostasis mechanisms and results in the increased abundance of sulfurrich
proteins. An antisense approach was used to reduce the abundance of
cruciferin, the main storage globulin of rape seed (
B. napus), which is deficient in cysteine, methionine, and lysine. The transgenic plants accumulated more of
the 2S albumin, napin, which has a better balance of essential amino acids. Seed
lysine, methionine, and cysteine levels were increased by 10%, 8%, and 32%,
respectively, over nontransformed controls (Kohnomurase
et al., 1995). In
soybean, a cosuppression strategy was used to decrease the α- and α
'-subunits
of β-conglycinin, which contain low levels of sulfur amino acids (~1.4%) (Kinney
et al., 2001).
This resulted in a concomitant increase in the accumulation of
glycinin, which contains higher levels of sulfur amino acids. Notably, substantial
amounts of proglycinin were shown to accumulate in novel, prevacuolar, PBs
similar to those found in cereal seeds, rather than in Golgi-derived vacuolar
vesicles. This may provide an alternative compartment for sequestering a variety
of foreign proteins in soybeans (Kinney
et al., 2001).