Glycyrrhizin is an important bioactive compound that is used clinically to treat chronic hepatitis and is also used as a sweetener world-wide. However, the key UDP-dependent glucuronosyltransferases (UGATs) involved in the biosynthesis of glycyrrhizin remain unknown. To discover unknown UGATs, we fully annotated potential UGATs from Glycyrrhiza uralensis using deep transcriptome sequencing. The catalytic functions of candidate UGATs were determined by an in vitro enzyme assay. Systematically screening 434 potential UGATs, we unexpectedly found one unique GuUGAT that was able to catalyse the glucuronosylation of glycyrrhetinic acid to directly yield glycyrrhizin via continuous two-step glucuronosylation. Expression analysis further confirmed the key role of GuUGAT in the biosynthesis of glycyrrhizin. Site-directed mutagenesis revealed that Gln-352 may be important for the initial step of glucuronosylation, and His-22, Trp-370, Glu-375 and Gln-392 may be important residues for the second step of glucuronosylation. Notably, the ability of GuUGAT to catalyse a continuous two-step glucuronosylation reaction was determined to be unprecedented among known glycosyltransferases of bioactive plant natural products. Our findings increase the understanding of traditional glycosyltransferases and pave the way for the complete biosynthesis of glycyrrhizin.

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Electronic noseDeer antler Lu-Rong Quality A B S T R A C T Deer antler is a precious animal-sourced traditional Chinese medicine. We aimed to rapidly assess the quality of deer antler slices by electronic nose so that we can ensure medical safety. In this study, response intensity of the electronic nose was favorably optimized, and samples were well assessed by using an electronic nose based on LDA model. The results obtained herein suggested that electronic nose could be an effective method to rapidly assess the quality of deer antler slices, and could also be an important tool for categorization of complex aroma mixtures for the control of quality of drugs or food.

Rhubarb (official Da-huang) is an important medicinal herb in Asia. Many adulterants of official Da-huang have been discovered in Chinese markets in recent years, which has resulted in adverse effects in medicinal treatment. Here, novel molecular markers based on a short maturase K (matK) gene were developed for authenticating official Da-huang. This study showed that all the species from official Da-huang were clustered together in one clade in the polygenetic trees based on short matK. Two highly conserved single nucleotide polymorphisms of short matK were mined in the species from official Da-huang. Based on these polymophisms, four improved specific primers of official Da-huang were successfully developed that generated reproducible specific bands. These results suggest that the short matK sequence can be considered as a favorable candidate for distinguishing official Da-huang from its adulterants. The established multiplex allele-specific PCR was determined to be simple and accurate and may serve as a preferable tool for authentication of official Da-huang. In addition, we suggest that short-sized specific bands be developed to authenticate materials used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The traditional medicine licorice is the most widely consumed herbal product in the world. Although much research work on studying the changes in the active compounds of licorice has been reported, there are still many areas, such as the dynamic accumulation of secondary metabolites in licorice, that need to be further studied. In this study, the secondary metabolites from licorice under two different methods of stress were investigated by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with hybrid linear ion trap–Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap-MS). A complex continuous coordination of flavonoids and triterpenoids in a network was modulated by different methods of stress during growth. The results showed that a total of 51 secondary metabolites were identified in licorice under ABA stress. The partial least squares–discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) revealed the distinction of obvious compounds among stress-specific districts relative to ABA stress. The targeted results showed that there were significant differences in the accumulation patterns of the deeply targeted 41 flavonoids and 10 triterpenoids compounds by PCA and PLS-DA analyses. To survey the effects of flavonoid and triterpenoid metabolism under ABA stress, we inspected the stress-specific metabolic changes. Our study testified that the majority of flavonoids and triterpenoids were elevated in licorice under ABA stress, while the signature metabolite affecting the dynamic accumulation of secondary metabolites was detected. Taken together, our results suggest that ABA-specific metabolite profiling dynamically changed in terms of the biosynthesis of flavonoids and triterpenoids, which may offer new trains of thought on the regular pattern of dynamic accumulation of secondary metabolites in licorice at the metabolite level. Our results also provide a reference for clinical applications and directional planting and licorice breeding.