Abstract:Divinyl reductase (DVR) converts 8-vinyl groups on various chlorophyll intermediates to ethyl groups,which is indispensable for chlorophyll biosynthesis.In the past decades,five DVR activities have been detected in higher plants.Recently,the results suggested that recombinant DVR proteins of rice and maize could convert divinyl chlorophyll a,chlorophyllide a,protochlorophyllide a,Mg-protoporphyrin Ⅸ monmethyl ester and Mg-protoporphyrin Ⅸ into corresponding monovinyl compounds,respectively,which confirmed the five DVR activities.Moreover,the data suggested that a single DVR with broad substrate specificity encoded by one gene was responsible for reducing the 8-vinyl groups of various chlorophyll intermediates in higher plants,but DVR proteins from different species had quite different reductive activities on the same or on different substrates even though they are homologous.In addition,it was proposed the multibranched chlorophyll biosynthetic pathways resulting from a single DVR protein in higher plants.In this review,we briefly introduced the advances on divinyl intermediates and DVR activities in chlorophyll biosynthesis,cloning of DVR genes and enzymatic assays of recombinant DVR proteins,number of DVR enzymes and multibranched chlorophyll biosynthetic pathways in higher plants.Meanwhile,we also discussed some problems to be further probed.