Adejobi Oluwaniyi Isaiah, Guan Ju, Yang Liu, Hu Jiang-Miao, Yu Anmin, Muraguri Sammy, Liu Aizhong
Key Laboratory of Economic Plants and Biotechnology, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
Skin Care Products Co-Development Center of Dr. Plant, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
Plants (Basel). 2021 Mar 26;10(4):633. doi: 10.3390/plants10040633.
The plants (members of the Orchidaceae family) are used as traditional Chinese medicinal herbs. Bibenzyl, one of the active compounds in , occurs in low amounts among different tissues. However, market demands require a higher content of thes compounds to meet the threshold for drug production. There is, therefore, an immediate need to dissect the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying how bibenzyl compounds are biosynthesized in tissues. In this study, the accumulation of erianin and gigantol in tissues were studied as representative compounds of bibenzyl. Exogenous application of Methyl-Jasmonate (MeJA) promotes the biosynthesis of bibenzyl compounds; therefore, transcriptomic analyses were conducted between treated root tissues and a control. Our results show that the root tissues contained the highest content of bibenzyl (erianin and gigantol). We identified 1342 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with 912 up-regulated and 430 down-regulated genes in our transcriptome dataset. Most of the identified DEGs are functionally involved in the JA signaling pathway and the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. We also identified two candidate cytochrome P450 genes and nine other enzymatic genes functionally involved in bibenzyl biosynthesis. Our study provides insights on the identification of critical genes associated with bibenzyl biosynthesis and accumulation in plants, paving the way for future research on dissecting the physiological and molecular mechanisms of bibenzyl synthesis in plants as well as guide genetic engineering for the improvement of varieties through increasing bibenzyl content for drug production and industrialization.
这些植物（兰科植物成员）被用作传统中药材。联苄是其中的活性成分之一，在不同组织中的含量较低。然而，市场需求要求这些化合物有更高的含量以达到药品生产的标准。因此，迫切需要剖析联苄化合物在这些组织中生物合成的生理和分子机制。在本研究中，以联苄的代表性化合物毛兰素和大花蕙兰素在组织中的积累为研究对象。外源施加茉莉酸甲酯（MeJA）可促进联苄化合物的生物合成；因此，对处理过的根组织和对照进行了转录组分析。我们的结果表明，根组织中联苄（毛兰素和大花蕙兰素）的含量最高。在我们的转录组数据集中，我们鉴定出1342个差异表达基因（DEG），其中912个上调基因和430个下调基因。大多数鉴定出的DEG在功能上参与茉莉酸信号通路和次生代谢物的生物合成。我们还鉴定出两个候选细胞色素P450基因和其他九个在功能上参与联苄生物合成的酶基因。我们的研究为鉴定与这些植物中联苄生物合成和积累相关的关键基因提供了见解，为未来剖析植物中联苄合成的生理和分子机制的研究铺平了道路，并指导通过提高联苄含量进行药品生产和产业化的遗传工程改良这些植物品种。
