Understanding fatty acid synthesis in developing maize embryos using metabolic flux analysis

The efficiency with which developing maize embryos convert substrates into seed storage reserves was determined to be 57–71%, by incubating developing maize embryos with uniformly labeled 14C substrates and measuring their conversion to CO2 and biomass products. To map the pattern of metabolic fluxes underlying this efficiency, maize embryos were labeled to isotopic steady state using a combination of labeled 13C-substrates. Intermediary metabolic fluxes were estimated by computer-aided modeling of the central metabolic network using the labeling data collected by NMR and GC-MS and the biomass composition. The resultant flux map reveals that even though 36% of the entering carbon goes through the oxidative pentose-phosphate pathway, this does not fully meet the NADPH demands for fatty acid synthesis. Metabolic flux analysis and enzyme activities highlight the importance of plastidic NADP-dependent malic enzyme, which provides one-third of the carbon and NADPH required for fatty acid synthesis in developing maize embryos.