Why is it important to study the metabolic pathways of plants ?

Knowledge of metabolic pathways and the analysis of differences between plants can be a great help in obtaining several products very useful for several areas related to the vegetal component of biology as is the case of Agriculture.

One such case is the use of herbicides that block the synthesis of lipids at the level of ACCase (enzyme acetyl-CoA carboxylase) in grasses. This type of herbicide allows the absence of competition in the production of dicotyledons and some monocotyledons since these are not as affected as grasses.

ACCase catalyzes the passage of acetyl-CoA to malonyl-CoA in the lipid synthesis pathway. And this selectivity is due to the fact that there are two types of ACCase enzymes. The eukaryotic ACCase, present in the cytoplasm, and the prokaryotic ACCase, present in the chloroplast. Since the synthesis of fatty acids in dicots occurs in chloroplasts and the form that is inhibited by the herbicide is the eukaryotic form, the synthesis of lipids in the dicotyledons will not be affected. Due to this fact the dicotyledons are not inhibited and the grasses, which only present the eukaryotic form in both the chloroplasts and the cytoplasm, are inhibited.