TY - JOUR
T1 - Frontiers of torenia research
T2 - Innovative ornamental traits and study of ecological interaction networks through genetic engineering
AU - Nishihara, Masahiro
AU - Shimoda, Takeshi
AU - Nakatsuka, Takashi
AU - Arimura, Gen ichiro
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge Drs. Yoshikazu Tanaka (Suntory Ltd., Japan) and Ryutaro Aida and Norihiro Ohtsubo (National Institute of Floricultural Science, Japan) for providing the torenia materials and literature information. This work was financially supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to GA (No. 24770019), TS (Nos. 22380038 and 23510271) and MN (Nos. 21658013 and 25660030), by Global COE Program A06 of Kyoto University, and by MEXT Grants for Excellent Graduate Schools.
PY - 2013/6/26
Y1 - 2013/6/26
N2 - Advances in research in the past few years on the ornamental plant torenia (Torenia spps.) have made it notable as a model plant on the frontier of genetic engineering aimed at studying ornamental characteristics and pest control in horticultural ecosystems. The remarkable advantage of torenia over other ornamental plant species is the availability of an easy and high-efficiency transformation system for it. Unfortunately, most of the current torenia research is still not very widespread, because this species has not become prominent as an alternative to other successful model plants such as Arabidopsis, snapdragon and petunia. However, nowadays, a more global view using not only a few selected models but also several additional species are required for creating innovative ornamental traits and studying horticultural ecosystems. We therefore introduce and discuss recent research on torenia, the family Scrophulariaceae, for secondary metabolite bioengineering, in which global insights into horticulture, agriculture and ecology have been advanced. Floral traits, in torenia particularly floral color, have been extensively studied by manipulating the flavonoid biosynthetic pathways in flower organs. Plant aroma, including volatile terpenoids, has also been genetically modulated in order to understand the complicated nature of multi-trophic interactions that affect the behavior of predators and pollinators in the ecosystem. Torenia would accordingly be of great use for investigating both the variation in ornamental plants and the infochemical-mediated interactions with arthropods.
AB - Advances in research in the past few years on the ornamental plant torenia (Torenia spps.) have made it notable as a model plant on the frontier of genetic engineering aimed at studying ornamental characteristics and pest control in horticultural ecosystems. The remarkable advantage of torenia over other ornamental plant species is the availability of an easy and high-efficiency transformation system for it. Unfortunately, most of the current torenia research is still not very widespread, because this species has not become prominent as an alternative to other successful model plants such as Arabidopsis, snapdragon and petunia. However, nowadays, a more global view using not only a few selected models but also several additional species are required for creating innovative ornamental traits and studying horticultural ecosystems. We therefore introduce and discuss recent research on torenia, the family Scrophulariaceae, for secondary metabolite bioengineering, in which global insights into horticulture, agriculture and ecology have been advanced. Floral traits, in torenia particularly floral color, have been extensively studied by manipulating the flavonoid biosynthetic pathways in flower organs. Plant aroma, including volatile terpenoids, has also been genetically modulated in order to understand the complicated nature of multi-trophic interactions that affect the behavior of predators and pollinators in the ecosystem. Torenia would accordingly be of great use for investigating both the variation in ornamental plants and the infochemical-mediated interactions with arthropods.
KW - Flavonoid
KW - Flower color
KW - Herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs)
KW - Indirect defense
KW - Metabolic engineering
KW - Torenia
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84879438441&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/1746-4811-9-23
DO - 10.1186/1746-4811-9-23
M3 - Review article
C2 - 23803155
AN - SCOPUS:84879438441
SN - 1746-4811
VL - 9
JO - Plant Methods
JF - Plant Methods
IS - 1
M1 - 23
ER -