Departamento de Biología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Bogota, DC, Colombia.
Biotechnol Lett. 2012 Apr;34(4):737-45. doi: 10.1007/s10529-011-0808-0. Epub 2011 Dec 9.
miRNAs involved in the biosynthesis of artemisinin, an anti-malarial compound form the plant Artemisia annua, have been identified using computational approaches to find conserved pre-miRNAs in available A. annua UniGene collections. Eleven pre-miRNAs were found from nine families. Targets predicted for these miRNAs were mainly transcription factors for conserved miRNAs. No target genes involved in artemisinin biosynthesis were found. However, miR390 was predicted to target a gene involved in the trichome development, which is the site of synthesis of artemisinin and could be a candidate for genetic transformation aiming to increase the content of artemisinin. Phylogenetic analyses were carried out to determinate the relation between A. annua and other plant pre-miRNAs: the pre-miRNA-based phylogenetic trees failed to correspond to known phylogenies, suggesting that pre-miRNA primary sequences may be too variable to accurately predict phylogenetic relations.
使用计算方法在现有的青蒿（Artemisia annua）UniGene 集合中寻找保守的前体 miRNA，鉴定出参与青蒿素生物合成的 miRNAs，青蒿素是一种抗疟化合物，来自植物青蒿。从九个家族中发现了十一个前体 miRNA。这些 miRNA 的预测靶标主要是保守 miRNA 的转录因子。未发现参与青蒿素生物合成的靶基因。然而，预测 miR390 靶向参与毛状体发育的基因，毛状体是青蒿素合成的部位，可能是遗传转化的候选基因，目的是提高青蒿素的含量。进行了系统发育分析以确定青蒿和其他植物前体 miRNA 之间的关系：基于前体 miRNA 的系统发育树与已知的系统发育不一致，这表明前体 miRNA 的一级序列可能变化太大，无法准确预测系统发育关系。
