Distribution of control in the sulfur assimilation in Arabidopsis thaliana depends on environmental conditions

What is it about?

We study which processes during the sulfur assimilation in plants exert control over the whole process. Often, such control is referred to as rate-limiting, since it is assumed that controlling steps act as sort of bottle-necks for the flux through the pathway. However, as we show in this work, commonly such a simplifying picture is wrong and control is distributed over many steps. Moreover, the pattern, how control is distributed is dynamic and changes with environmental conditions. In the specific example of sulfur assimilation control is distributed in such a way that reactions that were previously reported as rate-limiting indeed are participating in the control, but not as single rate-limiting steps. When the plant is subject to sulfur starvation, the distribution of control is changed and one reaction is carrying more control than others.

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