Integration of Plant Metabolism

The complexity of the plant metabolic network and its regulatory mechanisms has been amply confirmed by the compelling body of experimental evidence that has accumulated over the past decade from studies of the primary pathways of carbohydrate metabolism. In particular, there have been numerous studies of photosynthetic carbon assimilation and it is the aim of this section to present the principal conclusions about network performance that can be drawn from investigations of transgenic plants with reduced levels of Calvin cycle enzymes. The analysis highlights the robustness of the metabolic network and the complexity that needs to be incorporated into realistic models of plant metabolism.