Upadhyay Atul K, Chacko Anita R, Gandhimathi A, Ghosh Pritha, Harini K, Joseph Agnel P, Joshi Adwait G, Karpe Snehal D, Kaushik Swati, Kuravadi Nagesh, Lingu Chandana S, Mahita J, Malarini Ramya, Malhotra Sony, Malini Manoharan, Mathew Oommen K, Mutt Eshita, Naika Mahantesha, Nitish Sathyanarayanan, Pasha Shaik Naseer, Raghavender Upadhyayula S, Rajamani Anantharamanan, Shilpa S, Shingate Prashant N, Singh Heikham Russiachand, Sukhwal Anshul, Sunitha Margaret S, Sumathi Manojkumar, Ramaswamy S, Gowda Malali, Sowdhamini Ramanathan
National Centre for Biological Sciences (TIFR), GKVK Campus, Bellary Road, 560 065, Bangalore, India.
Manipal University, Madhav Nagar, 576104, Manipal, Karnataka, India.
BMC Plant Biol. 2015 Aug 28;15:212. doi: 10.1186/s12870-015-0562-x.
Krishna Tulsi, a member of Lamiaceae family, is a herb well known for its spiritual, religious and medicinal importance in India. The common name of this plant is 'Tulsi' (or 'Tulasi' or 'Thulasi') and is considered sacred by Hindus. We present the draft genome of Ocimum tenuiflurum L (subtype Krishna Tulsi) in this report. The paired-end and mate-pair sequence libraries were generated for the whole genome sequenced with the Illumina Hiseq 1000, resulting in an assembled genome of 374 Mb, with a genome coverage of 61 % (612 Mb estimated genome size). We have also studied transcriptomes (RNA-Seq) of two subtypes of O. tenuiflorum, Krishna and Rama Tulsi and report the relative expression of genes in both the varieties.
The pathways leading to the production of medicinally-important specialized metabolites have been studied in detail, in relation to similar pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana and other plants. Expression levels of anthocyanin biosynthesis-related genes in leaf samples of Krishna Tulsi were observed to be relatively high, explaining the purple colouration of Krishna Tulsi leaves. The expression of six important genes identified from genome data were validated by performing q-RT-PCR in different tissues of five different species, which shows the high extent of urosolic acid-producing genes in young leaves of the Rama subtype. In addition, the presence of eugenol and ursolic acid, implied as potential drugs in the cure of many diseases including cancer was confirmed using mass spectrometry.
The availability of the whole genome of O.tenuiflorum and our sequence analysis suggests that small amino acid changes at the functional sites of genes involved in metabolite synthesis pathways confer special medicinal properties to this herb.
圣罗勒是唇形科植物，在印度因其精神、宗教和药用价值而闻名。这种植物的通用名称是“图尔西”（或“图拉西”或“图拉斯”），被印度教徒视为神圣之物。在本报告中，我们展示了细叶罗勒L（克里希纳图尔西亚型）的基因组草图。利用Illumina Hiseq 1000对整个基因组进行测序，生成了双末端和配对末端序列文库，得到了一个374 Mb的组装基因组，基因组覆盖率为61%（估计基因组大小为612 Mb）。我们还研究了细叶罗勒的两个亚型——克里希纳图尔西和罗摩图尔西的转录组（RNA测序），并报告了两个品种中基因的相对表达情况。
已详细研究了导致产生具有重要药用价值的特殊代谢产物的途径，并与拟南芥和其他植物中的类似途径进行了比较。观察到克里希纳图尔西叶片样本中花青素生物合成相关基因的表达水平相对较高，这解释了克里希纳图尔西叶片的紫色。通过在五个不同物种的不同组织中进行q-RT-PCR，验证了从基因组数据中鉴定出的六个重要基因的表达，这表明罗摩亚型幼叶中产生熊果酸的基因含量很高。此外，使用质谱法确认了丁香酚和熊果酸的存在，它们被认为是治疗包括癌症在内的许多疾病的潜在药物。
细叶罗勒全基因组的可得性以及我们的序列分析表明，参与代谢物合成途径的基因功能位点上的小氨基酸变化赋予了这种草药特殊的药用特性。
