Abstract
Understanding of interlinked metabolism of guard cell (GC) and mesophyll
cell (MC) and their roles in stomatal movement will help in designing
crop plants with higher water use efficiencies. Although, previous
constraint-based modelling and analyses correctly predicted some known
metabolic patterns of isolated C 3 MC, GC and
Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) MC, detailed analysis of combined
metabolism of GC and MC and their quantitative estimations in both C
3 and CAM are still awaiting. We integrate stomatal
opening, gaseous exchange and GC-MC metabolism in our constraint-based
six-phase diel combined metabolic model and simulate this model to
predict the temporal differential flux distributions of GC and MC
metabolisms. In addition to previously predicted results, analysis of
this new two-cell model successfully shows higher activities of some
experimentally observed C 4-like enzymes such as PEPC,
MDH, ME etc., in GC compared to MC in C 3, the possible
storage patterns of the osmolytes like K +, malate
2-, sucrose etc., in CAM GC. Results also show
temporally different patterns of starch synthesis and accumulation, ATP
production and utilization in GC and MC of C 3 and CAM.
It is a significant step towards understanding and quantitative
estimation of the whole leaf tissue metabolism linking gaseous exchange
with environment.