The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources/Beijing Botanical Garden, Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China ; The Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Resources of Rubber Tree, Rubber Research Institute, the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Danzhou, Hainan, China.
PLoS One. 2013 Aug 14;8(8):e70665. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070665. eCollection 2013.
The rare wild species of snow lotus Saussurea involucrata is a commonly used medicinal herb with great pharmacological value for human health, resulting from its uniquely high level of phenylpropanoid compound production. To gain information on the phenylpropanid biosynthetic pathway genes in this critically important medicinal plant, global transcriptome sequencing was performed. It revealed that the phenylpropanoid pathway genes were well represented in S. involucrata. In addition, we introduced two key phenylpropanoid pathway inducing transcription factors (PAP1 and Lc) into this medicinal plant. Transgenic S. involucrata co-expressing PAP1 and Lc exhibited purple pigments due to a massive accumulation of anthocyanins. The over-expression of PAP1 and Lc largely activated most of the phenylpropanoid pathway genes, and increased accumulation of several phenylpropanoid compounds significantly, including chlorogenic acid, syringin, cyanrine and rutin. Both ABTS (2,2'-azinobis-3-ethylbenzotiazo-line-6-sulfonic acid) and FRAP (ferric reducing anti-oxidant power) assays revealed that the antioxidant capacity of transgenic S. involucrata lines was greatly enhanced over controls. In addition to providing a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of phenylpropanoid metabolism, our results potentially enable an alternation of bioactive compound production in S. involucrata through metabolic engineering.
雪莲是一种珍稀的野生物种，作为一种常用的草药，对人类健康具有重要的药理价值，这主要归因于其独特的高水平苯丙素化合物的产生。为了获取这种重要药用植物苯丙素生物合成途径基因的信息，我们进行了全局转录组测序。结果表明，雪莲中苯丙素途径基因表达良好。此外，我们还将两个关键的苯丙素途径诱导转录因子（PAP1 和 Lc）引入了这种药用植物。共表达 PAP1 和 Lc 的转基因雪莲由于大量积累花色素苷而呈现紫色色素。PAP1 和 Lc 的过表达大大激活了大多数苯丙素途径基因，并显著增加了几种苯丙素化合物的积累，包括绿原酸、丁香苷、氰定和芦丁。ABTS（2,2'-联氮-双-3-乙基苯并噻唑啉-6-磺酸）和 FRAP（铁还原抗氧化能力）测定均表明，转基因雪莲株系的抗氧化能力明显高于对照。除了提供对苯丙素代谢分子基础的更深入了解外，我们的结果还可能通过代谢工程改变雪莲中生物活性化合物的产生。
