Effect of Levopimaradiene on Terpene Trilactones Biosynthesis and Gene Expression Profiling in Ginkgo biloba Cells

Ginkgolides (GKs) and Bilobalide (BB) are rare terpene trilactones obtained from Ginkgo biloba, but their biosynthetic pathway is still unclear. In this paper, effects of levopimaradiene (LP) on increasing the production of terpene trilactones of G. biloba dedifferentiated cells (DDCs) and cambial meristematic cells (CMCs) were reported. The productions of ginkgolide A (GA) and ginkgolide B (GB) were 1.61 and 1.32 folds larger than that of the control groups when G. biloba DDCs was treated with LP, and the productions of ginkgolide C (GC) and BB reached 234 and 161 μg L−1 after treated with LP for 60 h. The production of GA, GB, GC and BB was 2.03, 1.43, 1.22 and 1.19 folds larger than that of the control groups in LP-treated CMCs groups. The results demonstrated that BB could be produced from the methylerythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway. qRT-PCR experiments showed that LP was a significant precursor manipulated the biosynthesis of terpene trilactones via affecting the transcript levels of several related genes in the MEP pathway.