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Hurrah IM, Kumar A, Abbas N. Functional characterisation of Artemisia annua jasmonic acid carboxyl methyltransferase: a key enzyme enhancing artemisinin biosynthesis. PLANTA 2024; 259:152. [PMID: 38735012 DOI: 10.1007/s00425-024-04433-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2024] [Accepted: 05/04/2024] [Indexed: 05/13/2024]
Abstract
MAIN CONCLUSION Overexpression of Artemisia annua jasmonic acid carboxyl methyltransferase (AaJMT) leads to enhanced artemisinin content in Artemisia annua. Artemisinin-based combination therapies remain the sole deterrent against deadly disease malaria and Artemisia annua remains the only natural producer of artemisinin. In this study, the 1101 bp gene S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM): Artemisia annua jasmonic acid carboxyl methyltransferase (AaJMT), was characterised from A. annua, which converts jasmonic acid (JA) to methyl jasmonate (MeJA). From phylogenetic analysis, we confirmed that AaJMT shares a common ancestor with Arabidopsis thaliana, Eutrema japonica and has a close homology with JMT of Camellia sinensis. Further, the Clustal Omega depicted that the conserved motif I, motif III and motif SSSS (serine) required to bind SAM and JA, respectively, are present in AaJMT. The relative expression of AaJMT was induced by wounding, MeJA and salicylic acid (SA) treatments. Additionally, we found that the recombinant AaJMT protein catalyses the synthesis of MeJA from JA with a Km value of 37.16 µM. Moreover, site-directed mutagenesis of serine-151 in motif SSSS to tyrosine, asparagine-10 to threonine and glutamine-25 to histidine abolished the enzyme activity of AaJMT, thus indicating their determining role in JA substrate binding. The GC-MS analysis validated that mutant proteins of AaJMT were unable to convert JA into MeJA. Finally, the artemisinin biosynthetic and trichome developmental genes were upregulated in AaJMT overexpression transgenic lines, which in turn increased the artemisinin content.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ishfaq Majid Hurrah
- Plant Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Sanat Nagar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, 190005, India
- Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India
| | - Amit Kumar
- Instrumentation Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu, 180001, India
| | - Nazia Abbas
- Plant Biotechnology Division, CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Sanat Nagar, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, 190005, India.
- Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, 201002, India.
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Yao X, Chen H, Ai A, Wang F, Lian S, Tang H, Jiang Y, Jiao Y, He Y, Li T, Lu L. The transcription factor CsS40 negatively regulates TCS1 expression and caffeine biosynthesis in connection to leaf senescence in Camellia sinensis. HORTICULTURE RESEARCH 2023; 10:uhad162. [PMID: 37731861 PMCID: PMC10508035 DOI: 10.1093/hr/uhad162] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2023] [Accepted: 07/30/2023] [Indexed: 09/22/2023]
Abstract
Caffeine is considered as one of the most important bioactive components in the popular plant beverages tea, cacao, and coffee, but as a wide-spread plant secondary metabolite its biosynthetic regulation at transcription level remains largely unclear. Here, we report a novel transcription factor Camellia sinensis Senescnece 40 (CsS40) as a caffeine biosynthesis regulator, which was discovered during screening a yeast expression library constructed from tea leaf cDNAs for activation of tea caffeine synthase (TCS1) promoter. Besides multiple hits of the non-self-activation CsS40 clones that bound to and activated TCS1 promoter in yeast-one-hybrid assays, a split-luciferase complementation assay demonstrated that CsS40 acts as a transcription factor to activate the CsTCS1 gene and EMSA assay also demonstrated that CsS40 bound to the TCS1 gene promoter. Consistently, immunofluorescence data indicated that CsS40-GFP fusion was localized in the nuclei of tobacco epidermal cells. The expression pattern of CsS40 in 'Fuding Dabai' developing leaves was opposite to that of TCS1; and knockdown and overexpression of CsS40 in tea leaf calli significantly increased and decreased TCS1 expression levels, respectively. The expression levels of CsS40 were also negatively correlated to caffeine accumulation in developing leaves and transgenic calli of 'Fuding Dabai'. Furthermore, overexpression of CsS40 reduced the accumulation of xanthine and hypoxanthine in tobacco plants, meanwhile, increased their susceptibility to aging. CsS40 expression in tea leaves was also induced by senescence-promoting hormones and environmental factors. Taken together, we showed that a novel senescence-related factor CsS40 negatively regulates TCS1 and represses caffeine accumulation in tea cultivar 'Fuding Dabai'. The study provides new insights into caffeine biosynthesis regulation by a plant-specific senescence regulator in tea plants in connection to leaf senescence and hormone signaling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xinzhuan Yao
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Hufang Chen
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Antao Ai
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Fen Wang
- School of Biological Science and Agriculture, Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities, Duyun 558000, China
| | - Shanshan Lian
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Hu Tang
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Yihe Jiang
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Yujie Jiao
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Yumei He
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Tong Li
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
| | - Litang Lu
- College of Tea Sciences, Institute of Plant Health & Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Germplasm Innovation in Mountainous Region (Ministry of Education), Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
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Zhou MZ, O'Neill Rothenberg D, Zeng W, Luo L, Yan CY, Zeng Z, Huang YH. Discovery and Biochemical Characterization of N-methyltransferase Genes Involved in Purine Alkaloid Biosynthetic Pathway of Camellia gymnogyna Hung T.Chang (Theaceae) from Dayao Mountain. PHYTOCHEMISTRY 2022; 199:113167. [PMID: 35378107 DOI: 10.1016/j.phytochem.2022.113167] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2021] [Revised: 03/09/2022] [Accepted: 03/11/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
In the present study, purine alkaloid analysis and transcriptome of Camellia gymnogyna Hung T. Chang (Theaceae) from Dayao Mountain were performed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and RNA-Seq, respectively. The results showed that the major purine alkaloids accumulated in Camellia gymnogyna Hung T. Chang (Theaceae) were theobromine together with a small amount of theacrine and caffeine. Through polymerase chain reaction (PCR), three types of cDNA encoding N-methyltransferases were isolated from the leaves of Camellia gymnogyna Hung T. Chang (Theaceae) and designated GCS1, GCS2, and GCS3. We subsequently expressed GCS1, GCS2, and GCS3 in Escherichia coli and incubated lysates of the bacterial cells with a variety of xanthine substrates in the presence of S-adenosyl-L-methionine as the methyl donor. We found that the recombinant GCS1 proteins catalyzed 1,3,7-trimethyluric acid to produce theacrine, the recombinant GCS3 proteins catalyzed 7-methylxanthine to produce theobromine, while the recombinant GCS2 proteins did not catalyze any xanthine derivatives. Simultaneous analysis of the expressions of GCS1, GCS2, GCS3, and a caffeine synthase gene (TCS1) in Camellia gymnogyna Hung T. Chang (Theaceae) and other tea plants provided a reference for further research on the functions of these genes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Meng-Zhen Zhou
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China; Tea Research Institute, Meizhou Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, Meizhou, 514071, China
| | - Dylan O'Neill Rothenberg
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
| | - Wen Zeng
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
| | - Li Luo
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
| | - Chang-Yu Yan
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
| | - Zhen Zeng
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China
| | - Ya-Hui Huang
- Department of Tea Science, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods, Guangzhou, 510642, China.
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Wan J, Liao Y, Liu J, Du W, Liu C, Wei Y, Ouyang Z. Screening, cloning and functional characterization of key methyltransferase genes involved in the methylation step of 1-deoxynojirimycin alkaloids biosynthesis in mulberry leaves. PLANTA 2022; 255:121. [PMID: 35538157 DOI: 10.1007/s00425-022-03901-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/05/2022] [Accepted: 04/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
The novel C-methyltransferase, MaMT1, could catalyze the conversion of piperidine to 2-methylpiperidine, which may be involved in the methylation step of DNJ biosynthesis in mulberry leaves. Mulberry (Morus alba L.) is a worldwide crop with medicinal, feeding and nutritional value, and 1-deoxynojirimycin ((2R, 3R, 4R, 5S)-2-hydroxymethyl-3, 4, 5-trihydroxypiperidine, DNJ) alkaloid, a potent α-glucosidase inhibitor, is its main active ingredient. Our previous researches clarified the biosynthetic pathway of DNJ from lysine to Δ1-piperideine, but its downstream pathway is unclear. Herein, eight differential methyltransferases (MTs) genes were screened from transcriptome profiles of mulberry leaves with significant differences in DNJ content (P < 0.01). Subsequently, MaMT1 (OM140666) and MaMT2 (OM140667) were hypothesized as candidate genes related to DNJ biosynthesis by correlation analysis of genes expression levels and DNJ content of mulberry leaves at different dates. Functional characterization of MaMT1 and MaMT2 were performed by cloning, prokaryotic expression and enzymatic reaction in vitro, and it showed that MaMT1 protein could catalyze the conversion of piperidine to 2-methylpiperidine. Moreover, molecular docking confirmed the interaction of MaMT1 protein with piperidine and S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM), indicating that MaMT1 had C-methyltransferase activity, while MaMT2 did not. The above results suggested that MaMT1 may be involved in the methylation step of DNJ alkaloid biosynthesis in mulberry leaves, which is a breakthrough in the analysis of DNJ alkaloid biosynthetic pathway. It is worth mentioning that the novel MaMT1, annotated as serine hydroxymethyltransferase, could rely on SAM to perform C-methyltransferase function. Therefore, our findings contribute new insights into the research of DNJ alkaloid biosynthesis and C-methyltransferase family.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingqiong Wan
- School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China
| | - Yangzhen Liao
- School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China
| | - Jia Liu
- College of Food Science and Technology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, 650201, China
| | - Wenmin Du
- School of Pharmacy, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China
| | - Chang Liu
- Nanjing Institute for Comprehensive Utilization of Wild Plants, Nanjing, 210042, China
| | - Yuan Wei
- School of Pharmacy, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China
| | - Zhen Ouyang
- School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China.
- School of Pharmacy, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, 212013, China.
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Zhang Y, Fu J, Zhou Q, Li F, Shen Y, Ye Z, Tang D, Chi N, Li L, Ma S, Inayat MA, Guo T, Zhao J, Li P. Metabolite Profiling and Transcriptome Analysis Revealed the Conserved Transcriptional Regulation Mechanism of Caffeine Biosynthesis in Tea and Coffee Plants. JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY 2022; 70:3239-3251. [PMID: 35245048 DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.1c06886] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
Caffeine is a characteristic bioactive compound in tea and coffee plants, which is synthesized and accumulated extensively in leaves and seeds. However, little is known about the regulatory mechanism of caffeine synthesis in plants. This study compared the caffeine metabolite between tea and coffee plants. We found that tea leaves contained significantly higher caffeine than coffee leaves, which is perhaps due to more members of N-methyltransferase (NMT) genes as well as higher expression levels in tea plants. Substantial numbers of transcription factors were predicted to be involved in caffeine biosynthesis regulation, combining weighted gene co-expression network analysis and the cis-element of NMT promoter analysis in tea and coffee plants. Furthermore, analysis of the transcription factors from the caffeine-related modules suggested that the regulatory mechanism of caffeine biosynthesis was probably partly conservative in tea and coffee plants. This study provides an essential resource for the regulatory mechanism of caffeine biosynthesis in plants.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yanrui Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Jiamin Fu
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Qiying Zhou
- Henan Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology, College of Life Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000, China
| | - Fangdong Li
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Yihua Shen
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Zhili Ye
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Dingkun Tang
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Ning Chi
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Lanqing Li
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Shuyu Ma
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Mallano Ali Inayat
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Tieying Guo
- Dehong Tropical Agriculture Research Institute of Yunnan, Ruili 679600, China
| | - Jian Zhao
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
| | - Penghui Li
- State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, China
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