The metabolic model of the Quercus suber (cork oak tree) leaf

Abstract

[Excerpt] The cork oak tree, Quercus suber, is an important renewable resource from which wine stoppers and many other natural products are derived. Portugal is the main producer of cork which approximately manifactures half of the world’s total consumption. The recently sequenced genome of Quercus suber [1] has 953 Mb size containing about 79.000 genes. It is important to have a better under- standing of the genomics and metabolomics of the tree to increase resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses and to obtain high quality cork. This information can be used as a supporting parameter for decisionmaking in cork production since normally it is not possible to evaluate the quality of cork before the tree is 40 years old. [...]