Abstract
Main conclusion
The study performed genome-wide identification, characterization and evolution analysis of gene clusters for phytoalexin terpenoid biosynthesis in tobacco, and specifically illustrated ones for capsidiol, an efficient defensive specialized metabolite.
Abstract
Terpenoid phytoalexins play an important role in plant self-defense against pest and pathogen attack. Terpenoid biosynthesis involves terpene synthase and cytochrome P450, which always locate and function as cluster(s). In this study, we performed genome-wide investigation of metabolic gene clusters involved in terpenoid production in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). Due to the complexity of the tobacco genome, we modified a published prediction pipeline to reduce the influence of the large number of repeats and to improve the annotation of tobacco genes with respect to their metabolic functions. We identified 1181 metabolic gene clusters with 34 of them potentially being involved in terpenoid biosynthesis. Through integration with transcriptome and metabolic pathway annotation analyses, 3 of the 34 terpenoid biosynthesis-related gene clusters were determined to be high-confidence ones, with 2 involved in biosynthesis of capsidiol, a terpenoid recognized as 1 of the effective resistance compounds in the Nicotiana species. The capsidiol-related gene cluster was conserved in N. sylvestris, N. tomentosiformis and N. attenuate. Our findings demonstrate that phytoalexins in tobacco can arise from operon-like gene clusters, a genomic pattern characterized as being beneficial for rapid stress response, gene co-regulation, co-function and co-heredity.
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Data availability
Data of the public RNA-seq for tobacco available at SRA Series accession number SRP101432; data of the pathogen infection RNA-seq not publicly available now for our unfinished work of a tobacco pathogen resistance genes cloning project, the data will be released to public in the near future; data of the all the MGCs information available in supplementary material.
Abbreviations
- CYP:
-
Cytochrome P450
- EAH:
-
5-Epi-aristolochene dihydroxylase
- EAS:
-
5-Epi-aristolochene synthase
- MGC:
-
Metabolic gene cluster
- TPS:
-
Terpene synthase
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31860411) to B. Xiao, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (2017QNA6013) to X. Chen and 111 Project (B17039) to M. Timko.
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Chen, X., Liu, F., Liu, L. et al. Characterization and evolution of gene clusters for terpenoid phytoalexin biosynthesis in tobacco. Planta 250, 1687–1702 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-019-03255-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00425-019-03255-7