Mining, expression, and phylogenetic analysis of volatile terpenoid biosynthesis-related genes in different tissues of ten Elsholtzia species based on transcriptomic analysis

Xiuwen Geng; Renhua Tang; Aili Zhang; Zhizhi Du; Lipan Yang; Yuqi Xu; Yiling Zhong; Run Yang; Wenyun Chen; Chunxia Pu

doi:10.1016/j.phytochem.2022.113419

Mining, expression, and phylogenetic analysis of volatile terpenoid biosynthesis-related genes in different tissues of ten Elsholtzia species based on transcriptomic analysis

Phytochemistry. 2022 Nov:203:113419. doi: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2022.113419. Epub 2022 Aug 31.

Authors

Xiuwen Geng¹, Renhua Tang¹, Aili Zhang¹, Zhizhi Du², Lipan Yang¹, Yuqi Xu¹, Yiling Zhong¹, Run Yang¹, Wenyun Chen³, Chunxia Pu⁴

Affiliations

¹ College of Chinese Materia Medica and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Southern Medicinal Utilization, Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China.
² Key Laboratory of Economic Plants and Biotechnology and the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Economic Plants and Biotechnology and the Yunnan Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650201, China. Electronic address: chenwy@mail.kib.ac.cn.
⁴ College of Chinese Materia Medica and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Southern Medicinal Utilization, Yunnan University of Chinese Medicine, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China. Electronic address: puchunxia@ynutcm.edu.cn.

PMID: 36055426
DOI: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2022.113419

Abstract

We sequenced the leaf and inflorescence transcriptomes of 10 Elsholtzia species to mine genes related to the volatile terpenoid metabolic pathway. A total of 184.68 GB data and 1,231,162,678 clean reads were obtained from 20 Elsholtzia samples, and 333,848 unigenes with an average length of at least 1440 bp were obtained by Trinity assembly. KEGG pathway analysis showed that there were three pathways related to volatile terpene metabolism: terpenoid backbone biosynthesis (No. ko00900), monoterpenoid biosynthesis (No. ko00902), and sesquiterpenoid and triterpenoid biosynthesis (No. ko00909), with 437, 125, and 121 related unigenes, respectively. The essential oil content and composition in 20 Elsholtzia samples were determined by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results showed that there were obvious interspecific differences among the 10 Elsholtzia species, but there were no significant differences between the different tissues among species. The expression levels of seven candidate genes involved in volatile terpenoid biosynthesis in Elsholtzia were further analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR. The results showed that HMGS had the highest expression among all genes, followed by GGPS4. In addition, there was not a significant correlation between the seven genes and the components with high essential oil contents. Combined with the essential oil components detected in this study, the possible biosynthetic pathway of the characteristic components in Elsholtzia plants was speculated to be a metabolic pathway with geraniol as the starting point and elsholtzione as the end product. Phylogenetic analysis was conducted using the nucleotide sequences of the geranyl diphosphate synthase candidate genes, and the results showed that genes related to the volatile terpenoid biosynthetic pathway may be more suitable gene fragments for resolving the Elsholtzia phylogeny.

Keywords: Elsholtzia; Elsholtzieae; Essential oil; Phylogenetic analysis; Transcriptome; Volatile terpenoids.

MeSH terms

Gene Expression Profiling
Gene Expression Regulation, Plant
Lamiaceae* / genetics
Lamiaceae* / metabolism
Monoterpenes / metabolism
Oils, Volatile* / analysis
Phylogeny
Terpenes / metabolism
Transcriptome
Triterpenes*

Substances

Monoterpenes
Oils, Volatile
Terpenes
Triterpenes