Wang Sen, Zeng Zhaoqi, Zhang Qi, Liu Wenhua, Liu Qinjian, Xie Chong, Bei Jinlong, Chen Bingxian, Zhang Aixia
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Crop Germplasm Resources Preservation and Utilization, Agro-Biological Gene Research Center, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
College of Agriculture and Biology, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Guangzhou, China.
Front Plant Sci. 2025 Feb 17;16:1510184. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1510184. eCollection 2025.
(patchouli) is a well-known perennial herbaceous plant for traditional Chinese medicine, and its primary bioactive compounds are patchoulol and pogostone. The biosynthesis pathway of patchouli has been well resolved early, while the biosynthesis pathway of pogostone is still not fully resolved due to the lack of terminal enzyme directly synthesizing pogostone. Here, the present study aims to predict the terminal enzyme of pogostone biosynthesis and reconstruct its most possible complete biosynthesis, through the integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis. The metabolomic and transcriptomic profiles of patchouli leaf were largely different to those of root and stem. Patchoulol analogs like patchoulene and germacrene mainly accumulated in leaf, while pogostone content was much higher in root. Based on the integrated analysis of differentially expressed genes and metabolites, we reconstructed the biosynthesis pathways of patchoulol, and predicted the most likely complete biosynthesis pathway of pogostone. Besides, we identified 29 highly-expressed genes involved in pogostone biosynthesis for the neo-octoploid genome of patchouli, and most of their expression levels were strongly correlated with pogostone content. In particular, patchouli BAHD-DCR acyltransferases (BAHD-DCRs) were phylogenetically distant from but structurally similar to the other known plant BAHD acyltransferases. Most of them possessed the conservative catalysis motif HXXXD, and the catalysis center could bind to the widely recognized substrate molecules of 4-hydroxy-6-methyl-2-pyrone and 4-methylvaleryl-CoA and product molecule of pogostone. Thus, the highly-expressed BAHD-DCRs in patchouli root were proposed to be terminal enzymes directly synthesizing pogostone. The findings here provide more supporting evidence for the medical use of patchouli whole plants, and make an important step forward fully resolving the pogostone biosynthesis pathway. The identified genes involved in pogostone biosynthesis, especially , deserve further investigation and utilization in the synthetic production of pogostone.
广藿香是一种著名的传统中药多年生草本植物，其主要生物活性化合物为广藿香醇和百秋李醇。广藿香的生物合成途径早已得到充分解析，而由于缺乏直接合成百秋李醇的末端酶，百秋李醇的生物合成途径仍未完全解析。在此，本研究旨在通过整合转录组学和代谢组学分析来预测百秋李醇生物合成的末端酶，并重建其最可能完整的生物合成途径。广藿香叶片的代谢组学和转录组学图谱与根和茎的图谱有很大差异。广藿香烯和杜松烯等广藿香醇类似物主要积累在叶片中，而百秋李醇含量在根中要高得多。基于对差异表达基因和代谢物的综合分析，我们重建了广藿香醇的生物合成途径，并预测了最可能完整的百秋李醇生物合成途径。此外，我们为广藿香的新八倍体基因组鉴定了29个参与百秋李醇生物合成的高表达基因，它们的大多数表达水平与百秋李醇含量高度相关。特别是，广藿香BAHD - DCR酰基转移酶（BAHD - DCRs）在系统发育上与其他已知植物BAHD酰基转移酶相距较远，但结构相似。它们中的大多数具有保守的催化基序HXXXD，其催化中心可以与广泛认可的4 - 羟基 - 6 - 甲基 - 2 - 吡喃酮和4 - 甲基戊酰辅酶A底物分子以及百秋李醇产物分子结合。因此，广藿香根中高表达的BAHD - DCRs被认为是直接合成百秋李醇的末端酶。这里的研究结果为广藿香全草的药用提供了更多支持证据，并在完全解析百秋李醇生物合成途径方面向前迈出了重要一步。鉴定出的参与百秋李醇生物合成的基因，特别是 ，在百秋李醇的合成生产中值得进一步研究和利用。
