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Seasonal-based temporal changes fluctuate expression patterns of TXS, DBAT, BAPT and DBTNBT genes alongside production of associated taxanes in Taxus baccata

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Abstract

Key message

Environmental cues have synergistic or antagonistic regulatory roles on transcription activity and taxanes accumulation in yew, though DBAT activity is less influenced, could be accordingly a rate-limiting enzyme.

Abstract

The current work was undertaken to elucidate the consequences of some environmental cues (i.e., day length, temperature, sunlight and relative humidity) on the expression patterns of TXS, DBAT, BAPT and DBTNBT genes contributed to the taxol biosynthetic pathway along with the accumulation of some taxanes in needles and stems of Taxus baccata over year 2013–2014. In both tissues, light intensity and temperature correlated with the production of 10-DAB III and total taxanes, and TXS activity, while a lack of significant association was deduced for day length and relative humidity. Furthermore, in both tissues, a weak correlation was observed between BAC III and light intensity, temperature, day length and relative humidity, and the corresponding gene, DBAT. Surprisingly, DBAT activity was not co-induced with TXS in both tissues, and remained expressed at basal levels over year, supporting that the conversion of 10-DAB III into BAC III could presumably be a rate limiting step in the taxol biosynthetic pathway. Similar to BAC III, no strong correlation was detected between production of taxol in both tissues and all the meteorological data, while the corresponding genes BAPT and DBTNBT, in some cases, exhibited significant correlated results. Notably, despite higher activities of BAPT and DBTNBT in both tissues over year, taxol production was still in small quantities, probably owing to the low amounts of its precursors rather than low volumes of BAPT and DBTNBT transcripts. The results, altogether, could provide us new insights towards the potential regulatory roles of environmental cues on the production of taxanes in yew trees.

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Abbreviations

10-DAB III:

10-Deacetylbaccatin III

BAC III:

Baccatin III

BAPT:

Baccatin III-3-amino, 3-phenylpropanoyltransferase

DBAT:

10-Deacetylbaccatin III-10-O-acetyltransferase

DBTNBT:

3′-N-debenzoyl-2′-deoxytaxol-N-benzoyltransferase

DL:

Day length

GGPP:

Geranylgeranyl diphosphate

GGPPS:

Geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase

HS:

Hours of sunlight

LLE:

Liquid–liquid extraction

MEP:

Methyl erythritol phosphate

MVA:

Mevalonic acid

PAM:

Phenylalanineaminomutase

PSMs:

Plant secondary metabolites

qRT-PCR:

Quantitative real-time PCR

RH max:

Maximum relative humidity

RH mean:

Mean relative humidity

RH min:

Minimum relative humidity

TAT:

Taxadienol acetyl transferase

T. baccata :

Taxus baccata

T5αH:

Taxadien-5-alpha-ol-O-acetyltransferase

T10βH:

Taxane-10β-hydroxylase

T max:

Maximum temperature

T mean:

Mean temperature

T min:

Minimum temperature

TXS:

Taxadiene synthase

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to appreciate three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments to the manuscript. We would also like to appreciate Alireza Fotuhi Siahpirani from Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, for his sincere assistance in preparation of Heatmap-based plots using Rstudio program. Department of Plant Breeding of the University of Tehran is also acknowledged for proving lab instruments and financial support.

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Correspondence to Jaber Nasiri or Mohammad Reza Naghavi.

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Communicated by B. Li.

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Nasiri, J., Naghavi, M.R., Alizadeh, H. et al. Seasonal-based temporal changes fluctuate expression patterns of TXS, DBAT, BAPT and DBTNBT genes alongside production of associated taxanes in Taxus baccata . Plant Cell Rep 35, 1103–1119 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00299-016-1941-y

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