Structure-based identification and pathway elucidation of flavonoids in .

Flavonoid metabolism in remained an untapped area for years. A tandem MS approach was used and focused on the mining and characterizing of flavonoids in mature . Fifteen new flavonoids and forty-three known flavonoids, including fifteen flavone analogs, sixteen flavonol analogs, seven flavanone analogs, six chalcone analogs, four xanthone analogs, ten flavane analogs were mined and identified based on their MS/MS fragments. Fifty-three of them were firstly characterized in Eight biosynthetic precursors for these flavonoids were also identified. We constructed a specific metabolic map for flavonoids according to their relative contents in the flowers, fruits, stems, and leaves of . Furthermore, the most probable genes involved in chalcone biosynthesis, flavonoid hydroxylation, methylation, and glycosylation were further mined and fished in the gene reservoir of according to their conserved domains and co-expression analysis. These findings enable us to acquire a better understanding of versatile flavonoid metabolism in .