Next generation sequencing unravels the biosynthetic ability of Spearmint (Mentha spicata) peltate glandular trichomes through comparative transcriptomics

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Jun Liu¹  Nam-Hai Chua¹  Limsoon Wong²  Deepa Panicker³  Jun-Lin Yin³  Rajani Sarojam³  Qian Wang³  Mi Jung Kim³  In-Cheol Jang⁴  Jingjing Jin⁵ 

[1] Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, 10065, New York, NY, USA;School of Computing, National University of Singapore, 117417, Singapore, Singapore;Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, 1 Research Link, National University of Singapore, 117604, Singapore, Singapore;Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, 1 Research Link, National University of Singapore, 117604, Singapore, Singapore;Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 117543, Singapore, Singapore;Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, 1 Research Link, National University of Singapore, 117604, Singapore, Singapore;School of Computing, National University of Singapore, 117417, Singapore, Singapore;Laboratory of Plant Molecular Biology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, 10065, New York, NY, USA;

关键词: Spearmint;    Next generation sequencing;    Transcriptome;    Glandular trichomes;    Terpenes;    Carvone;    Terpene synthases;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12870-014-0292-5

 received in 2014-07-09, accepted in 2014-10-16,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPlant glandular trichomes are chemical factories with specialized metabolic capabilities to produce diverse compounds. Aromatic mint plants produce valuable essential oil in specialised glandular trichomes known as peltate glandular trichomes (PGT). Here, we performed next generation transcriptome sequencing of different tissues of Mentha spicata (spearmint) to identify differentially expressed transcripts specific to PGT. Our results provide a comprehensive overview of PGT’s dynamic metabolic activities which will help towards pathway engineering.ResultsSpearmint RNAs from 3 different tissues: PGT, leaf and leaf stripped of PGTs (leaf-PGT) were sequenced by Illumina paired end sequencing. The sequences were assembled de novo into 40,587 non-redundant unigenes; spanning a total of 101 Mb. Functions could be assigned to 27,025 (67%) unigenes and among these 3,919 unigenes were differentially expressed in PGT relative to leaf - PGT. Lack of photosynthetic transcripts in PGT transcriptome indicated the high levels of purity of isolated PGT, as mint PGT are non-photosynthetic. A significant number of these unigenes remained unannotated or encoded hypothetical proteins. We found 16 terpene synthases (TPS), 18 cytochrome P450s, 5 lipid transfer proteins and several transcription factors that were preferentially expressed in PGT. Among the 16 TPSs, two were characterized biochemically and found to be sesquiterpene synthases.ConclusionsThe extensive transcriptome data set renders a complete description of genes differentially expressed in spearmint PGT. This will facilitate the metabolic engineering of mint terpene pathway to increase yield and also enable the development of strategies for sustainable production of novel or altered valuable compounds in mint.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Jin et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.