School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China.
Key Laboratory of Molecular Epigenetics of Ministry of Education (MOE), Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.
Genes (Basel). 2021 Mar 31;12(4):514. doi: 10.3390/genes12040514.
Chinese ginseng ( C. A. Meyer) is a highly cherished traditional Chinese medicine, with several confirmed medical effects and many more asserted health-boosting functions. Somatic chromosomal instability (CIN) is a hallmark of many types of human cancers and also related to other pathogenic conditions such as miscarriages and intellectual disabilities, hence, the study of this phenomenon is of wide scientific and translational medical significance. CIN also ubiquitously occurs in cultured plant cells, and is implicated as a major cause of the rapid decline/loss of totipotency with culture duration, which represents a major hindrance to the application of transgenic technologies in crop improvement. Here, we report two salient features of long-term cultured callus cells of ginseng, i.e., high chromosomal stability and virtually immortalized totipotency. Specifically, we document that our callus of ginseng, which has been subcultured for 12 consecutive years, remained highly stable at the chromosomal level and showed little decline in totipotency. We show that these remarkable features of cultured ginseng cells are likely relevant to the robust homeostasis of the transcriptional expression of specific genes (i.e., genes related to tissue totipotency and chromosomal stability) implicated in the manifestation of these two complex phenotypes. To our knowledge, these two properties of ginseng have not been observed in any animals (with respect to somatic chromosomal stability) and other plants. We posit that further exploration of the molecular mechanisms underlying these unique properties of ginseng, especially somatic chromosomal stability in protracted culture duration, may provide novel clues to the mechanistic understanding of the occurrence of CIN in human disease.
人参（C. A. Meyer）是一种备受推崇的传统中药，具有多种已确认的医疗功效，还有许多被声称具有促进健康的功能。体细胞染色体不稳定性（CIN）是许多人类癌症的标志，也与其他致病情况（如流产和智力障碍）有关，因此，对这种现象的研究具有广泛的科学和转化医学意义。CIN 也普遍存在于培养的植物细胞中，并被认为是培养时间延长导致全能性迅速下降/丧失的主要原因，这是转基因技术在作物改良中应用的主要障碍。在这里，我们报告了人参长期培养愈伤组织细胞的两个显著特征，即高染色体稳定性和几乎永生的全能性。具体来说，我们记录了我们的人参愈伤组织，已经连续传代培养了 12 年，在染色体水平上仍然高度稳定，全能性几乎没有下降。我们表明，这些人参培养细胞的显著特征可能与特定基因（即与组织全能性和染色体稳定性相关的基因）转录表达的强大内稳性有关，这些基因涉及到这两种复杂表型的表现。据我们所知，在任何动物（关于体细胞染色体稳定性）和其他植物中都没有观察到人参的这两个特性。我们假设，进一步探索人参这些独特特性（特别是在长时间培养过程中的体细胞染色体稳定性）的分子机制，可能为人类疾病中 CIN 发生的机制理解提供新的线索。
