Kwon Ki-Rok, Park Won-Pil, Kang Won-Mo, Jeon Eun-Yi, Jang Jun-Hyeog
Research Center of the Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute, Seoul, Korea.
J Acupunct Meridian Stud. 2011 Jun;4(2):123-8. doi: 10.1016/S2005-2901(11)60018-6.
Ginseng is one of the most widely used herbal medicines in the world. Wild ginseng is thought to be more effective than cultivated ginseng in chemoprevention; however, little has been reported on the differences between wild and cultivated ginseng. In the present study we used suppressive subtractive hybridization to identify wild ginseng-specific genes. One of the clones isolated in this screen was the NRT2 gene (designated pNRT2), a high-affinity nitrate transporter. Real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction results showed that pNRT2 expression was significantly upregulated in wild ginseng compared with cultivated ginseng. However, pNRT2 mRNA levels were similar between mountain cultivated ginseng and mountain wild ginseng. Nitrate is an important nitrogen source for plant growth, and its soil levels can vary in wild environments; thus it is conceivable that pNRT2 expression is upregulated in wild ginseng and may be an important marker of wild ginseng.
人参是世界上使用最广泛的草药之一。野生人参在化学预防方面被认为比栽培人参更有效；然而，关于野生人参和栽培人参之间差异的报道很少。在本研究中，我们使用抑制性消减杂交技术来鉴定野生人参特异性基因。在此筛选中分离出的一个克隆是NRT2基因（命名为pNRT2），一种高亲和力硝酸盐转运蛋白。实时逆转录-聚合酶链反应结果表明，与栽培人参相比，野生人参中pNRT2的表达显著上调。然而，山地栽培人参和山地野生人参之间的pNRT2 mRNA水平相似。硝酸盐是植物生长的重要氮源，其在野生环境中的土壤水平可能会有所不同；因此可以推测，野生人参中pNRT2的表达上调，可能是野生人参的一个重要标志物。
