Characterization of a novel levopimaradiene synthase gene responsible for the biosynthesis of terpene trilactones in .

Terpene trilactones (TTLs) are the main medicinal compounds of . Levopimaradiene synthase (LPS) is the crucial enzyme that catalyzes TTLs biosynthesis in . In this study, a novel LPS gene (designated as ) was cloned from leaves. The open reading frame of gene was 2520 bp in length, encoding a predicted polypeptide of 840 amino acids. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the GbLPS2 was highly homologous with reported LPS proteins in other plants. On the basis of the genomic DNA (gDNA) template, a 4308 bp gDNA sequence of and a 913 bp promoter sequence were amplified. -acting elements in promoter analysis indicated that could be regulated by methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and abscisic acid (ABA). Tissue-specific expression analysis revealed that was mainly expressed in roots and ovulate strobilus. MeJA treatment could significantly induce the expression level of and increase the content of TTLs. This study illustrates the structure and the tissue-specific expression pattern of and demonstrates that exogenous hormones regulated the expression of and TTL content in . Our results provide a target gene for the enhancement of TTL content in via genetic engineering.