Full‐length transcriptome sequencing provides new insights into the complexity of flavonoid biosynthesis in Glechoma longituba

Abstract

Glechoma longituba has been frequently used in treating urolithiasis and cholelithiasis due to the presence of flavonoids, which are its major bioactive constituents. However, research on the molecular background of flavonoid biosynthesis in G. longituba is limited. In this study, we used single‐molecule real‐time combined with next‐generation sequencing technologies to construct the complete transcriptome of G. longituba. We identified 404,648 non‐redundant transcripts, including 249,697 coding sequences, 197,811 simple sequence repeats, 174,846 long noncoding RNA, and 176,554 coding RNA. Moreover, we functionally annotated 346,218 isoforms (85.56%) and identified 86,528 differentially expressed genes. We also identified 55 non‐redundant full‐length isoforms related to the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the expression levels of some key genes of the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway were significantly positively correlated with the flavonoid metabolites. Furthermore, we performed bioinformatics analysis (sequence and structural) of isoform_47029 (encoding flavanone 3‐hydroxylase) and isoform_53692 (encoding flavonol synthase) to evaluate their potential biological functions. Finally, we validated gene expression levels of 12 flavonoid‐related key enzyme genes using quantitative real‐time PCR. Overall, this study provides full‐length transcriptome information on G. longituba for the first time and valuable molecular resources for further research on the medicinal properties of this plant.

Integrated Metabolomics and Transcriptomics Analysis of Flavonoid Biosynthesis Pathway in Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua

“…In the current study, both DAMs and DEGs annotated by the KEGG database were mainly enriched in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis (ko00940), flavonoid biosynthesis (ko00941), and flavone and flavonol biosynthesis (ko00944) pathways (Tables 2 and S4). In medicinal plants, differential genes related to flavonoid biosynthesis are subjected to the phenylpropane biosynthesis pathway [68][69][70][71], flavonoid biosynthesis pathway [69,71], flavone and flavonol biosynthesis pathways [69][70][71], and isoflavone biosynthesis pathway [69,71] by KEGG pathway analysis. The first three pathways have also been reported in P. kingianum [41] and P. cyrtonema [36].…”