Genes 2018, 9(1), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/genes9010038
Comparative Transcriptome Analysis Identifies Putative Genes Involved in Steroid Biosynthesis in Euphorbia tirucalli
1
CAS Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 17 November 2017 / Revised: 9 January 2018 / Accepted: 11 January 2018 / Published: 15 January 2018
(This article belongs to the Section Plant Genetics and Genomics)
Abstract
Phytochemical analysis of different Euphorbia tirucalli tissues revealed a contrasting tissue-specificity for the biosynthesis of euphol and β-sitosterol, which represent the two pharmaceutically active steroids in E. tirucalli. To uncover the molecular mechanism underlying this tissue-specificity for phytochemicals, a comprehensive E. tirucalli transcriptome derived from its root, stem, leaf and latex was constructed, and a total of 91,619 unigenes were generated with 51.08% being successfully annotated against the non-redundant (Nr) protein database. A comparison of the transcriptome from different tissues discovered members of unigenes in the upstream steps of sterol backbone biosynthesis leading to this tissue-specific sterol biosynthesis. Among them, the putative oxidosqualene cyclase (OSC) encoding genes involved in euphol synthesis were notably identified, and their expressions were significantly up-regulated in the latex. In addition, genome-wide differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the different E. tirucalli tissues were identified. The cluster analysis of those DEGs showed a unique expression pattern in the latex compared with other tissues. The DEGs identified in this study would enrich the insights of sterol biosynthesis and the regulation mechanism of this latex-specificity. View Full-TextKeywords:
Euphorbia tirucalli; oxidosqualene cyclase; transcriptome; steroid
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Qiao, W.; Li, C.; Mosongo, I.; Liang, Q.; Liu, M.; Wang, X. Comparative Transcriptome Analysis Identifies Putative Genes Involved in Steroid Biosynthesis in Euphorbia tirucalli. Genes 2018, 9, 38.
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