Transcriptomic analyses provide new insights into green and purple color pigmentation in Rheum tanguticum medicinal plants

PeerJ

article

Haixia Chen¹  Tsan-Yu Chiu²  Sunil Kumar Sahu²  Haixi Sun²  Jiawen Wen²  Jianbo Sun⁴  Qiyuan Li⁴  Yangfan Tang⁵  Hong Jin⁶  Huan Liu¹ 

[1] College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences;BGI-Shenzhen;State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Genomics;China National GeneBank;Sichuan Academy of Chinese Medicine Sciences;Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Shenzhen & Chinese Academy of Sciences

关键词: Rheum tanguticum;    Color;    RNA-seq;    Chlorophyll;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.14265

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRheum tanguticum Maxim. ex Balf is a traditional Chinese medicinal plant that is commonly used to treat many ailments. It belongs to the Polygonacae family and grows in northwest and southwest China. At high elevations, the color of the plant’s young leaves is purple, which gradually changes to green during the growth cycle. Anthraquinone, which is known for various biological activities, is the main bioactive compound in R. tanguticum. Although a significant amount of research has been done on R. tanguticum in the past, the lack of transcriptome data limits our knowledge of the gene regulatory networks involved in pigmentation and in the metabolism of bioactive compounds in Rheum species.MethodsTo fill this knowledge gap, we generated high-quality RNA-seq data and performed multi-tissue transcriptomic analyses of R. tanguticum.ResultsWe found that three chlorophyll degradation enzymes (RtPPH, RtPao and RtRCCR) were highly expressed in purple samples, which suggests that the purple pigmentation is mainly due to the effects of chlorophyll degradation. Overall, these data may aid in drafting the transcriptional network in the regulation and biosynthesis of medicinally active compounds in the future.

【 授权许可】

CC BY