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Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses reveal several critical metabolic pathways and candidate genes involved in resin biosynthesis in Pinus massoniana

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Abstract

Pine resin, which typically consists of terpenoids, is a natural product used in various industrial applications. Oleoresin can be obtained from the xylem tissue by wounding the stem bark. Pinus massoniana (masson pine) is an important resin-tapping tree species that originated in southern China. Masson pines with different genetic backgrounds typically have different resin-yielding capacities (RYCs). However, the mechanisms underlying high resin yield in masson pines are unclear. The aim of this study was to identify the possible genetic regulation pathways and functional genes that influence the resin yield. In this study, we conducted transcriptomic and metabolomic studies of masson pine secondary xylem with high, medium, and low RYCs. A total of 230,068 unigenes and 3894 metabolites were identified from the tissue of the secondary xylem. Several differentially expressed regulation factors, including WRKY, bHLH, and ERF, and functional genes such as PKc and LRR-RLKs, were identified among these masson pines. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways were mainly focused on diterpenoid biosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction, and ABC transporters. Furthermore, integration of the transcriptomic and metabolomic data indicated that the PKc- and LRR-RLK-related regulatory and metabolic pathways may play critical roles in the biosynthesis of terpenoids. These above results improve our understanding of the biosynthesis mechanism of oleoresin in P. massoniana and facilitate further research work into the functional analysis of these candidate genes.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31800553).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Silviculture, Protection and Utilization, Guangdong Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, 510520, China

    Qingsong Bai, Boxiang He, Yanling Cai, Huiming Lian & Qian Zhang

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  1. Qingsong Bai
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  2. Boxiang He
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  3. Yanling Cai
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  4. Huiming Lian
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  5. Qian Zhang
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Contributions

BQ and ZQ designed the study. BQ took the experiments, performed the data analyses, and wrote the manuscript. HB, CY, LH, and ZQ collected the materials and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qian Zhang.

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Bai, Q., He, B., Cai, Y. et al. Transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses reveal several critical metabolic pathways and candidate genes involved in resin biosynthesis in Pinus massoniana. Mol Genet Genomics 295, 327–341 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00438-019-01624-1

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