Biological functions and applications of malate dehydrogenase

Malate dehydrogenase (MDH) is present in all living organisms and is one of the key enzymes in biological glucose metabolism, catalyzing the reversible conversion between malic acid and oxaloacetate. MDH plays an important role in various physiological activities of cells, including mitochondrial energy metabolism and plant reactive oxygen species metabolism, and has high theoretical research and economic significance.

In agricultural production, MDH is used to improve plant salt tolerance

Aluminum toxicity in acidic soil is the main limiting factor for crop growth. Research has found that in order to improve the absorption of phosphorus in soil by plants, genetic engineering is used for plant molecular improvement breeding. For example, overexpression of MDH gene in alfalfa enhances the absorption of organic acids by transgenic alfalfa, thereby improving its adaptability to acidic soil and tolerance to aluminum toxicity. However, when MDH is highly expressed, an increase in plant organic acid content can increase cell osmotic pressure and chelate to remove some ions, thereby improving plant salt tolerance.

Identifying the purity of tomato hybrids

In tomato F1 hybrids, using electrophoresis to detect the differences between MDH isoenzyme spectra to identify the purity of hybrids has become a new time-saving and labor-saving detection method in seed production, which is beneficial for identifying high-yield, disease resistant, and stress resistant hybrids, bringing significant economic benefits to agricultural production.

As a diagnostic antigen in medicine

MDH has also attracted increasing attention in the medical field, such as the use of genetically engineered vaccines to prevent human tapeworm disease, which has become a research direction of great concern. Through bioinformatics analysis of the MDH gene of the Asian subspecies of tapeworm, it was predicted that cytoplasmic MDH is a potential diagnostic antigen, providing important clues for the application prospects of tapeworm in diagnosis, drug and vaccine research. Later, experiments proved that it could obtain highly efficient expression with immunological activity in prokaryotic expression systems, laying the foundation for further research on the function of this protein. Simultaneously, combining multiple recombinant vaccines for immunization to enhance vaccine protection has become the main direction for the development of vector borne vaccines in the future.

In summary, MDHs, as a key enzyme in the central metabolic pathway of organisms, have been extensively studied both domestically and internationally. At present, various MDHs isoenzymes are being applied in research on biological classification, species differentiation, genetic variation, species hybridization, and individual development. Therefore, a deep understanding of the physiological and biochemical characteristics, structure, function, and catalytic mechanism of MDHs is of great significance for exploring the metabolic role of MDHs in organisms and the molecular pathogenic mechanisms of some diseases.