The Taxus genome provides insights into paclitaxel biosynthesis

Xingyao Xiong; Junbo Gou; Qinggang Liao; Yanlin Li; Qian Zhou; Guiqi Bi; Chong Li; Ran Du; Xiaotong Wang; Tianshu Sun; Lvjun Guo; Haifei Liang; Pengjun Lu; Yaoyao Wu; Zhonghua Zhang; Dae-Kyun Ro; Yi Shang; Sanwen Huang; Jianbin Yan

doi:10.1038/s41477-021-00963-5

The Taxus genome provides insights into paclitaxel biosynthesis

Nat Plants. 2021 Aug;7(8):1026-1036. doi: 10.1038/s41477-021-00963-5. Epub 2021 Jul 15.

Authors

Xingyao Xiong^#^{1

2}, Junbo Gou^#², Qinggang Liao^#², Yanlin Li^#^{1

3}, Qian Zhou^{2

4}, Guiqi Bi², Chong Li², Ran Du², Xiaotong Wang², Tianshu Sun², Lvjun Guo⁵, Haifei Liang², Pengjun Lu², Yaoyao Wu², Zhonghua Zhang⁶, Dae-Kyun Ro^{2

7}, Yi Shang⁸, Sanwen Huang⁹, Jianbin Yan¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ College of Horticulture, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China.
² Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Agricultural Synthetic Biology, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China.
³ Engineering Research Center for Horticultural Crop Germplasm Creation and New Variety Breeding, Ministry of Education, Changsha, China.
⁴ Peng Cheng Laboratory Artificial Intelligence Research Center No. 2, Shenzhen, China.
⁵ MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Tsinghua-Peking Joint Center for Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
⁶ College of Horticulture, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, China.
⁷ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
⁸ The AGISCAAS-YNNU Joint Academy of Potato Sciences, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China.
⁹ Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Agricultural Synthetic Biology, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China. huangsanwen@caas.cn.
¹⁰ Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Agricultural Synthetic Biology, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen, China. jianbinlab@caas.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The ancient gymnosperm genus Taxus is the exclusive source of the anticancer drug paclitaxel, yet no reference genome sequences are available for comprehensively elucidating the paclitaxel biosynthesis pathway. We have completed a chromosome-level genome of Taxus chinensis var. mairei with a total length of 10.23 gigabases. Taxus shared an ancestral whole-genome duplication with the coniferophyte lineage and underwent distinct transposon evolution. We discovered a unique physical and functional grouping of CYP725As (cytochrome P450) in the Taxus genome for paclitaxel biosynthesis. We also identified a gene cluster for taxadiene biosynthesis, which was formed mainly by gene duplications. This study will facilitate the elucidation of paclitaxel biosynthesis and unleash the biotechnological potential of Taxus.

MeSH terms

Antineoplastic Agents / metabolism*
Biosynthetic Pathways / genetics*
Evolution, Molecular
Genome, Plant*
Paclitaxel / biosynthesis*
Plants, Medicinal / genetics
Plants, Medicinal / metabolism
Sequence Analysis*
Taxus / genetics*
Taxus / metabolism*

Substances

Antineoplastic Agents
Paclitaxel