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Investigating sesquiterpene biosynthesis in Ginkgo biloba: molecular cloning and functional characterization of (E,E)-farnesol and α-bisabolene synthases

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Abstract

Ginkgo biloba is one of the oldest living tree species and has been extensively investigated as a source of bioactive natural compounds, including bioactive flavonoids, diterpene lactones, terpenoids and polysaccharides which accumulate in foliar tissues. Despite this chemical diversity, relatively few enzymes associated with any biosynthetic pathway from ginkgo have been characterized to date. In the present work, predicted transcripts potentially encoding enzymes associated with the biosynthesis of diterpenoid and terpenoid compounds, including putative terpene synthases, were first identified by mining publicly-available G. biloba RNA-seq data sets. Recombinant enzyme studies with two of the TPS-like sequences led to the identification of GbTPS1 and GbTPS2, encoding farnesol and bisabolene synthases, respectively. Additionally, the phylogenetic analysis revealed the two terpene synthase genes as primitive genes that might have evolved from an ancestral diterpene synthase.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Franck Dayan for assistance with enzyme kinetic analyses. We also thank Marilyn Ruscoe, Melanie Mask, and Julie Blessitt for excellent technical assistance and Jon Parcher for his revision of the manuscript and suggestions. This research work is supported in part by FDA Grant No. 1U01FD004246-3 and USDA-ARS Grant No. 56-6402-1-612.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Natural Products Research, Thad Cochran Research Center, School of Pharmacy, University of Mississippi, University, MS, 38677, USA

    Iffat Parveen, Mei Wang, Jianping Zhao, Amar G. Chittiboyina, Nurhayat Tabanca, Abbas Ali, Natascha Techen & Ikhlas A. Khan

  2. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Natural Products Utilization Research Unit (USDA-ARS-NPURU), P.O. Box 1848, University, MS, 38677-1848, USA

    Scott R. Baerson & Zhiqiang Pan

  3. Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 405036, USA

    Joe Chappell

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  1. Iffat Parveen
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ikhlas A. Khan or Zhiqiang Pan.

Additional information

The sequences reported in this study have been deposited in the GenBank database (Accession Numbers: GbTPS1, KM248383 and GbTPS2, KM248384).

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Parveen, I., Wang, M., Zhao, J. et al. Investigating sesquiterpene biosynthesis in Ginkgo biloba: molecular cloning and functional characterization of (E,E)-farnesol and α-bisabolene synthases. Plant Mol Biol 89, 451–462 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-015-0381-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-015-0381-3

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