Dataset Information

Comparative transcriptome analysis of a taxol-producing endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6, and its mutant strain.

ABSTRACT: Taxol is a rare but extremely effective antitumor agent extracted from Taxus yew barks. Taxus plants are valuable and rare species, and the production of taxol from them is a complex process. Therefore, taxol-producing endophytic fungi seem to be a promising alternative because of their high practical value and convenient progress. In this study, the transcriptome of an endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6 was analyzed in order to understand the molecular mechanisms of producing fungal taxol. The results showed that genes involved in the mevalonate (MVA) pathway and non-mevalonate (MEP) pathway were expressed, including isopentenyl pyrophosphate transferase, geranyl pyrophosphate transferase, and geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate synthetase. However, those downstream genes involved in the conversion of taxa-4(5)-11(12)-diene from geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate were not expressed except for taxane 10-beta-hydroxylase. Additionally, a mutant strain, A. aculeatinus BT-2 was obtained from the original strain, A. aculeatinus Tax-6, using fungicidin as the mutagenic agent. The taxol yield of BT-2 was 560 µg L^-1, which was higher than that of Tax-6. To identify the mechanism of the difference in taxol production, we compared the transcriptomes of the two fungi and explored the changes in the gene expression between them. When compared with the original strain, Tax-6, most genes related to the MVA pathway in the mutant strain BT-2 showed upregulation, including GGPPS. Moreover, most of the downstream genes were not expressed in the mutant fungi as well. Overall, the results revealed the pathway and mechanism of taxol synthesis in endophytic fungi and the potential for the construction of taxol-producing genetic engineering strains.

SUBMITTER: Qiao W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7324598 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Comparative transcriptome analysis of a taxol-producing endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6, and its mutant strain.

Qiao Weichuan W Tang Tianhao T Ling Fei F

Scientific reports 20200629 1

Taxol is a rare but extremely effective antitumor agent extracted from Taxus yew barks. Taxus plants are valuable and rare species, and the production of taxol from them is a complex process. Therefore, taxol-producing endophytic fungi seem to be a promising alternative because of their high practical value and convenient progress. In this study, the transcriptome of an endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6 was analyzed in order to understand the molecular mechanisms of producing fung ...[more]

PMID: 32601443

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Project description:BackgroundTaxol from Taxus species is a precious drug used for the treatment of cancer and can effectively inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells. However, the growth of Taxus plants is very slow and the content of taxol is quite low. Therefore, it is of great significance to improve the yield of taxol by modern biotechnology without destroying the wild forest resources. Endophytic fungus which symbiosis with their host plants can promote the growth and secondary metabolism of medicinal plants.ResultsHere, an endophytic fungus KL27 was isolated from T. chinensis, and identified as Pseudodidymocyrtis lobariellae. The fermentation broth of KL27 (KL27-FB) could significantly promote the accumulation of taxol in needles of T. chinensis, reaching 0.361 ± 0.082 mg/g·DW (dry weight) at 7 days after KL27-FB treatment, which is 3.26-fold increase as compared to the control. The RNA-seq and qRT-PCR showed that KL27-FB could significantly increase the expression of key genes involved in the upstream pathway of terpene synthesis (such as DXS and DXR) and those in the taxol biosynthesis pathway (such as GGPPS, TS, T5OH, TAT, T10OH, T14OH, T2OH, TBT, DBAT and PAM), especially at the early stage of the stimulation. Moreover, the activation of jasmonic acid (JA) biosynthesis and JA signal transduction, and its crosstalk with other hormones, such as gibberellin acid (GA), ethylene (ET) and salicylic acid (SA), explained the elevation of most of the differential expressed genes related to taxol biosynthesis pathway. Moreover, TF (transcriptional factor)-encoding genes, including MYBs, ethylene-responsive transcription factors (ERFs) and basic/helix-loop-helix (bHLH), were detected as differential expressed genes after KL27-FB treatment, further suggested that the regulation of hormone signaling on genes of taxol biosynthesis was mediated by TFs.ConclusionsOur results indicated that fermentation broth of endophytic fungus KL27-FB could effectively enhance the accumulation of taxol in T. chinensis needles by regulating the phytohormone metabolism and signal transduction and further up-regulating the expression of multiple key genes involved in taxol biosynthesis. This study provides new insight into the regulatory mechanism of how endophytic fungus promotes the production and accumulation of taxol in Taxus sp.

Dataset Information

Comparative transcriptome analysis of a taxol-producing endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6, and its mutant strain.

Publications

Comparative transcriptome analysis of a taxol-producing endophytic fungus, Aspergillus aculeatinus Tax-6, and its mutant strain.

Similar Datasets

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