Glycolysis Dominates Over Photorespiration in Governing Oxalate Accumulation in Rice.
Yu W, Yuan P, Li G, Zeng A, Liu E
Crispr
The tart bite of wood sorrel on a trail walk and the gritty feeling spinach leaves on your teeth both trace to the same compound — oxalic acid — and scientists just pinpointed the exact cellular engine that builds it, opening a real path toward leafy greens and grains that are kinder to people prone to kidney stones.
Plants like spinach, rhubarb, and rice produce a compound called oxalic acid that makes them taste sour and, in large amounts, can cause health concerns. Scientists long believed this compound was made through a process tied to sunlight and photosynthesis, but a new study using gene-edited rice shows it's actually the cell's main sugar-burning engine — the same process powering nearly every living cell — that does the heavy lifting. This discovery reshapes the roadmap for breeding crops that are safer and healthier to eat.
Key Findings
CRISPR-knockout rice plants lacking nitrate or nitrite reductase showed significantly lower oxalate levels; restoring nitrate or nitrite (but not ammonium) rescued production, pinpointing exactly which step in nitrogen processing controls oxalate.
Glycolytic intermediates (phosphoenolpyruvate and 3-phosphoglycerate) boosted oxalate content, while two glycolysis inhibitors suppressed it — directly confirming that sugar metabolism, not photosynthesis-linked respiration, drives oxalate synthesis.
Photorespiration does not directly produce oxalate; it acts only indirectly through glycerate, which feeds back into glycolysis — overturning a long-standing assumption about the primary biosynthetic route.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists used CRISPR gene editing in rice to trace how plants produce oxalate — the compound behind spinach's gritty texture and rhubarb's sourness — and found that the cell's sugar-burning process (glycolysis) is the primary driver, overturning the long-held assumption that photorespiration was mainly responsible.
Abstract Preview
Oxalate is widely distributed and serves various functional roles in plants. However, its biosynthetic pathway and regulatory mechanisms remain poorly defined. In this study, we further inves...
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