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Digital Gene Expression Analysis Provides Insight into the Transcript Profile of the Genes Involved in Aporphine Alkaloid Biosynthesis in Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera).

ABSTRACT: The predominant alkaloids in lotus leaves are aporphine alkaloids. These are the most important active components and have many pharmacological properties, but little is known about their biosynthesis. We used digital gene expression (DGE) technology to identify differentially-expressed genes (DEGs) between two lotus cultivars with different alkaloid contents at four leaf development stages. We also predicted potential genes involved in aporphine alkaloid biosynthesis by weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). Approximately 335 billion nucleotides were generated; and 94% of which were aligned against the reference genome. Of 22 thousand expressed genes, 19,000 were differentially expressed between the two cultivars at the four stages. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis revealed that catalytic activity and oxidoreductase activity were enriched significantly in most pairwise comparisons. In Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis, dozens of DEGs were assigned to the categories of biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis, and flavonoid biosynthesis. The genes encoding norcoclaurine synthase (NCS), norcoclaurine 6-O-methyltransferase (6OMT), coclaurine N-methyltransferase (CNMT), N-methylcoclaurine 3'-hydroxylase (NMCH), and 3'-hydroxy-N-methylcoclaurine 4'-O-methyltransferase (4'OMT) in the common pathways of benzylisoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis and the ones encoding corytuberine synthase (CTS) in aporphine alkaloid biosynthetic pathway, which have been characterized in other plants, were identified in lotus. These genes had positive effects on alkaloid content, albeit with phenotypic lag. The WGCNA of DEGs revealed that one network module was associated with the dynamic change of alkaloid content. Eleven genes encoding proteins with methyltransferase, oxidoreductase and CYP450 activities were identified. These were surmised to be genes involved in aporphine alkaloid biosynthesis. This transcriptomic database provides new directions for future studies on clarifying the aporphine alkaloid pathway.

SUBMITTER: Yang M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5281601 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Digital Gene Expression Analysis Provides Insight into the Transcript Profile of the Genes Involved in Aporphine Alkaloid Biosynthesis in Lotus (<i>Nelumbo nucifera</i>).

Yang Mei M Zhu Lingping L Li Ling L Li Juanjuan J Xu Liming L Feng Ji J Liu Yanling Y

Frontiers in plant science 20170131

The predominant alkaloids in lotus leaves are aporphine alkaloids. These are the most important active components and have many pharmacological properties, but little is known about their biosynthesis. We used digital gene expression (DGE) technology to identify differentially-expressed genes (DEGs) between two lotus cultivars with different alkaloid contents at four leaf development stages. We also predicted potential genes involved in aporphine alkaloid biosynthesis by weighted gene co-express ...[more]

PMID: 28197160

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is an aquatic plant with important agronomic, horticulture, art and religion values. It was the basal eudicot species occupying a critical phylogenetic position in flowering plants. After the domestication for thousands of years, lotus has differentiated into three cultivated types -flower lotus, seed lotus and rhizome lotus. Although the phenotypic and genetic differentiations based on molecular markers have been reported, the variation on whole-genome level among the different lotus types is still ambiguous. RESULTS:In order to reveal the evolution and domestication characteristics of lotus, a total of 69 lotus accessions were selected, including 45 cultivated accessions, 22 wild sacred lotus accessions, and 2 wild American lotus accessions. With Illumina technology, the genomes of these lotus accessions were resequenced to >?13× raw data coverage. On the basis of these genomic data, 25 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified in lotus. Population analysis showed that the rhizome and seed lotus were monophyletic and genetically homogeneous, whereas the flower lotus was biphyletic and genetically heterogeneous. Using population SNP data, we identified 1214 selected regions in seed lotus, 95 in rhizome lotus, and 37 in flower lotus. Some of the genes in these regions contributed to the essential domestication traits of lotus. The selected genes of seed lotus mainly affected lotus seed weight, size and nutritional quality. While the selected genes were responsible for insect resistance, antibacterial immunity and freezing and heat stress resistance in flower lotus, and improved the size of rhizome in rhizome lotus, respectively. CONCLUSIONS:The genome differentiation and a set of domestication genes were identified from three types of cultivated lotus- flower lotus, seed lotus and rhizome lotus, respectively. Among cultivated lotus, flower lotus showed the greatest variation. The domestication genes may show agronomic importance via enhancing insect resistance, improving seed weight and size, or regulating lotus rhizome size. The domestication history of lotus enhances our knowledge of perennial aquatic crop evolution, and the obtained dataset provides a basis for future genomics-enabled breeding.

Dataset Information

Digital Gene Expression Analysis Provides Insight into the Transcript Profile of the Genes Involved in Aporphine Alkaloid Biosynthesis in Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera).

Publications

Digital Gene Expression Analysis Provides Insight into the Transcript Profile of the Genes Involved in Aporphine Alkaloid Biosynthesis in Lotus (<i>Nelumbo nucifera</i>).

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