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Journal ArticleDOI

The Tomato Terpene Synthase Gene Family

TL;DR: In this paper, it was shown that the tomato genome contains 44 terpene synthase (TPS) genes, including 29 that are functional or potentially functional in at least some organs or tissues of the plant.
Abstract: Compounds of the terpenoid class play numerous roles in the interactions of plants with their environment, such as attracting pollinators and defending the plant against pests. We show here that the genome of cultivated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) contains 44 terpene synthase (TPS) genes, including 29 that are functional or potentially functional. Of these 29 TPS genes, 26 were expressed in at least some organs or tissues of the plant. The enzymatic functions of eight of the TPS proteins were previously reported, and here we report the specific in vitro catalytic activity of 10 additional tomato terpene synthases. Many of the tomato TPS genes are found in clusters, notably on chromosomes 1, 2, 6, 8, and 10. All TPS family clades previously identified in angiosperms are also present in tomato. The largest clade of functional TPS genes found in tomato, with 12 members, is the TPS-a clade, and it appears to encode only sesquiterpene synthases, one of which is localized to the mitochondria, while the rest are likely cytosolic. A few additional sesquiterpene synthases are encoded by TPS-b clade genes. Some of the tomato sesquiterpene synthases use z,z-farnesyl diphosphate in vitro as well, or more efficiently than, the e,e-farnesyl diphosphate substrate. Genes encoding monoterpene synthases are also prevalent, and they fall into three clades: TPS-b, TPS-g, and TPS-e/f. With the exception of two enzymes involved in the synthesis of ent-kaurene, the precursor of gibberellins, no other tomato TPS genes could be demonstrated to encode diterpene synthases so far.

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Book ChapterDOI
Dorothea Tholl1
TL;DR: This chapter gives an overview and highlights recent advances in the understanding of the organization, regulation, and diversification of core and specialized terpenoid metabolic pathways, and addresses the most important functions of volatile and nonvolatile terpenoids specialized metabolites in plants.
Abstract: Terpenoids (isoprenoids) represent the largest and most diverse class of chemicals among the myriad compounds produced by plants. Plants employ terpenoid metabolites for a variety of basic functions in growth and development but use the majority of terpenoids for more specialized chemical interactions and protection in the abiotic and biotic environment. Traditionally, plant-based terpenoids have been used by humans in the food, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries, and more recently have been exploited in the development of biofuel products. Genomic resources and emerging tools in synthetic biology facilitate the metabolic engineering of high-value terpenoid products in plants and microbes. Moreover, the ecological importance of terpenoids has gained increased attention to develop strategies for sustainable pest control and abiotic stress protection. Together, these efforts require a continuous growth in knowledge of the complex metabolic and molecular regulatory networks in terpenoid biosynthesis. This chapter gives an overview and highlights recent advances in our understanding of the organization, regulation, and diversification of core and specialized terpenoid metabolic pathways, and addresses the most important functions of volatile and nonvolatile terpenoid specialized metabolites in plants.

539 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An overview of the metabolic diversity found within plant glandular trichomes is provided, with the emphasis on those of the Solanaceae, and of the tools available to manipulate their activities for enhancing the plant’s resistance to pests is provided.
Abstract: Glandular trichomes are specialized hairs found on the surface of about 30% of all vascular plants and are responsible for a significant portion of a plant's secondary chemistry. Glandular trichomes are an important source of essential oils, i.e., natural fragrances or products that can be used by the pharmaceutical industry, although many of these substances have evolved to provide the plant with protection against herbivores and pathogens. The storage compartment of glandular trichomes usually is located on the tip of the hair and is part of the glandular cell, or cells, which are metabolically active. Trichomes and their exudates can be harvested relatively easily, and this has permitted a detailed study of their metabolites, as well as the genes and proteins responsible for them. This knowledge now assists classical breeding programs, as well as targeted genetic engineering, aimed to optimize trichome density and physiology to facilitate customization of essential oil production or to tune biocide activity to enhance crop protection. We will provide an overview of the metabolic diversity found within plant glandular trichomes, with the emphasis on those of the Solanaceae, and of the tools available to manipulate their activities for enhancing the plant's resistance to pests.

385 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 2015
TL;DR: In this review paper, recent developments in the biosynthesis of terpenoids, indepth description of terpene synthases and their phylogenetic analysis, regulation of ter pene biosynthesis as well as updates of ter penes which have entered in the clinical studies are reviewed thoroughly.
Abstract: The terpenoids constitute the largest class of natural products and many interesting products are extensively applied in the industrial sector as flavors, fragrances, spices and are also used in perfumery and cosmetics. Many terpenoids have biological activities and also used for medical purposes. In higher plants, the conventional acetate-mevalonic acid pathway operates mainly in the cytosol and mitochondria and synthesizes sterols, sesquiterpenes and ubiquinones mainly. In the plastid, the non-mevalonic acid pathway takes place and synthesizes hemi-, mono-, sesqui-, and diterpenes along with carotenoids and phytol tail of chlorophyll. In this review paper, recent developments in the biosynthesis of terpenoids, indepth description of terpene synthases and their phylogenetic analysis, regulation of terpene biosynthesis as well as updates of terpenes which have entered in the clinical studies are reviewed thoroughly.

357 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This review summarizes progress in the discovery of new plant natural product pathways and indicates that increased knowledge of the features of plant metabolic gene clusters - architecture, regulation and assembly - will be instrumental in expediting natural product discovery.
Abstract: Contents 'Summary' 771 I. 'Introduction' 771 II. 'Plant metabolic gene clusters – some rules and anomalies' 772 III. 'Cluster regulation' 780 IV. 'Why are the genes clustered?' 781 V. 'Conclusions and outlook' 786 'Acknowledgements' 786 References 786 Summary Plant natural products are of great value for agriculture, medicine and a wide range of other industrial applications. The discovery of new plant natural product pathways is currently being revolutionized by two key developments. First, breakthroughs in sequencing technology and reduced cost of sequencing are accelerating the ability to find enzymes and pathways for the biosynthesis of new natural products by identifying the underlying genes. Second, there are now multiple examples in which the genes encoding certain natural product pathways have been found to be grouped together in biosynthetic gene clusters within plant genomes. These advances are now making it possible to develop strategies for systematically mining multiple plant genomes for the discovery of new enzymes, pathways and chemistries. Increased knowledge of the features of plant metabolic gene clusters – architecture, regulation and assembly – will be instrumental in expediting natural product discovery. This review summarizes progress in this area.

249 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Glandular trichomes cover the surface of many plant species and exhibit tremendous diversity, be it in their shape or the compounds they secrete as discussed by the authors, which has spurred research into the biosynthesis pathways that lead to these specialized metabolites.
Abstract: Glandular trichomes cover the surface of many plant species. They exhibit tremendous diversity, be it in their shape or the compounds they secrete. This diversity is expressed between species but also within species or even individual plants. The industrial uses of some trichome secretions and their potential as a defense barrier, for example against arthropod pests, has spurred research into the biosynthesis pathways that lead to these specialized metabolites. Because complete biosynthesis pathways take place in the secretory cells, the establishment of trichome-specific expressed sequence tag libraries has greatly accelerated their elucidation. Glandular trichomes also have an important metabolic capacity and may be considered as true cell factories. To fully exploit the potential of glandular trichomes as breeding or engineering objects, several research areas will have to be further investigated, such as development, patterning, metabolic fluxes and transcription regulation. The purpose of this review is to provide an update on the methods and technologies which have been used to investigate glandular trichomes and to propose new avenues of research to deepen our understanding of these specialized structures.

217 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This assay is very reproducible and rapid with the dye binding process virtually complete in approximately 2 min with good color stability for 1 hr with little or no interference from cations such as sodium or potassium nor from carbohydrates such as sucrose.

225,085 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Version 4 of MEGA software expands on the existing facilities for editing DNA sequence data from autosequencers, mining Web-databases, performing automatic and manual sequence alignment, analyzing sequence alignments to estimate evolutionary distances, inferring phylogenetic trees, and testing evolutionary hypotheses.
Abstract: We announce the release of the fourth version of MEGA software, which expands on the existing facilities for editing DNA sequence data from autosequencers, mining Web-databases, performing automatic and manual sequence alignment, analyzing sequence alignments to estimate evolutionary distances, inferring phylogenetic trees, and testing evolutionary hypotheses. Version 4 includes a unique facility to generate captions, written in figure legend format, in order to provide natural language descriptions of the models and methods used in the analyses. This facility aims to promote a better understanding of the underlying assumptions used in analyses, and of the results generated. Another new feature is the Maximum Composite Likelihood (MCL) method for estimating evolutionary distances between all pairs of sequences simultaneously, with and without incorporating rate variation among sites and substitution pattern heterogeneities among lineages. This MCL method also can be used to estimate transition/transversion bias and nucleotide substitution pattern without knowledge of the phylogenetic tree. This new version is a native 32-bit Windows application with multi-threading and multi-user supports, and it is also available to run in a Linux desktop environment (via the Wine compatibility layer) and on Intel-based Macintosh computers under the Parallels program. The current version of MEGA is available free of charge at (http://www.megasoftware.net).

29,021 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Clustal series of programs, widely used in molecular biology for the multiple alignment of both nucleic acid and protein sequences and for preparing phylogenetic trees, are extended.
Abstract: The Clustal series of programs are widely used in molecular biology for the multiple alignment of both nucleic acid and protein sequences and for preparing phylogenetic trees. The popularity of the programs depends on a number of factors, including not only the accuracy of the results, but also the robustness, portability and user-friendliness of the programs. New features include NEXUS and FASTA format output, printing range numbers and faster tree calculation. Although, Clustal was originally developed to run on a local computer, numerous Web servers have been set up, notably at the EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute) (http://www.ebi.

5,300 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Gerald A. Tuskan1, Gerald A. Tuskan2, Stephen P. DiFazio3, Stephen P. DiFazio1, Stefan Jansson4, Joerg Bohlmann5, Igor V. Grigoriev6, Uffe Hellsten6, Nicholas H. Putnam6, Steven G. Ralph5, Stephane Rombauts7, Asaf Salamov6, Jacquie Schein, Lieven Sterck7, Andrea Aerts6, Rishikeshi Bhalerao4, Rishikesh P. Bhalerao8, Damien Blaudez9, Wout Boerjan7, Annick Brun9, Amy M. Brunner10, Victor Busov11, Malcolm M. Campbell12, John E. Carlson13, Michel Chalot9, Jarrod Chapman6, G.-L. Chen1, Dawn Cooper5, Pedro M. Coutinho14, Jérémy Couturier9, Sarah F. Covert15, Quentin C. B. Cronk5, R. Cunningham1, John M. Davis16, Sven Degroeve7, Annabelle Déjardin9, Claude W. dePamphilis13, John C. Detter6, Bill Dirks17, Inna Dubchak18, Inna Dubchak6, Sébastien Duplessis9, Jürgen Ehlting5, Brian E. Ellis5, Karla C Gendler19, David Goodstein6, Michael Gribskov20, Jane Grimwood21, Andrew Groover22, Lee E. Gunter1, Björn Hamberger5, Berthold Heinze, Yrjö Helariutta8, Yrjö Helariutta23, Yrjö Helariutta24, Bernard Henrissat14, D. Holligan15, Robert A. Holt, Wenyu Huang6, N. Islam-Faridi22, Steven J.M. Jones, M. Jones-Rhoades25, Richard A. Jorgensen19, Chandrashekhar P. Joshi11, Jaakko Kangasjärvi24, Jan Karlsson4, Colin T. Kelleher5, Robert Kirkpatrick, Matias Kirst16, Annegret Kohler9, Udaya C. Kalluri1, Frank W. Larimer1, Jim Leebens-Mack15, Jean-Charles Leplé9, Philip F. LoCascio1, Y. Lou6, Susan Lucas6, Francis Martin9, Barbara Montanini9, Carolyn A. Napoli19, David R. Nelson26, C D Nelson22, Kaisa Nieminen24, Ove Nilsson8, V. Pereda9, Gary F. Peter16, Ryan N. Philippe5, Gilles Pilate9, Alexander Poliakov18, J. Razumovskaya1, Paul G. Richardson6, Cécile Rinaldi9, Kermit Ritland5, Pierre Rouzé7, D. Ryaboy18, Jeremy Schmutz21, J. Schrader27, Bo Segerman4, H. Shin, Asim Siddiqui, Fredrik Sterky, Astrid Terry6, Chung-Jui Tsai11, Edward C. Uberbacher1, Per Unneberg, Jorma Vahala24, Kerr Wall13, Susan R. Wessler15, Guojun Yang15, T. Yin1, Carl J. Douglas5, Marco A. Marra, Göran Sandberg8, Y. Van de Peer7, Daniel S. Rokhsar6, Daniel S. Rokhsar17 
15 Sep 2006-Science
TL;DR: The draft genome of the black cottonwood tree, Populus trichocarpa, has been reported in this paper, with more than 45,000 putative protein-coding genes identified.
Abstract: We report the draft genome of the black cottonwood tree, Populus trichocarpa. Integration of shotgun sequence assembly with genetic mapping enabled chromosome-scale reconstruction of the genome. More than 45,000 putative protein-coding genes were identified. Analysis of the assembled genome revealed a whole-genome duplication event; about 8000 pairs of duplicated genes from that event survived in the Populus genome. A second, older duplication event is indistinguishably coincident with the divergence of the Populus and Arabidopsis lineages. Nucleotide substitution, tandem gene duplication, and gross chromosomal rearrangement appear to proceed substantially more slowly in Populus than in Arabidopsis. Populus has more protein-coding genes than Arabidopsis, ranging on average from 1.4 to 1.6 putative Populus homologs for each Arabidopsis gene. However, the relative frequency of protein domains in the two genomes is similar. Overrepresented exceptions in Populus include genes associated with lignocellulosic wall biosynthesis, meristem development, disease resistance, and metabolite transport.

4,025 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Takashi Matsumoto1, Jianzhong Wu1, Hiroyuki Kanamori1, Yuichi Katayose1  +262 moreInstitutions (25)
11 Aug 2005-Nature
TL;DR: A map-based, finished quality sequence that covers 95% of the 389 Mb rice genome, including virtually all of the euchromatin and two complete centromeres, and finds evidence for widespread and recurrent gene transfer from the organelles to the nuclear chromosomes.
Abstract: Rice, one of the world's most important food plants, has important syntenic relationships with the other cereal species and is a model plant for the grasses. Here we present a map-based, finished quality sequence that covers 95% of the 389 Mb genome, including virtually all of the euchromatin and two complete centromeres. A total of 37,544 non-transposable-element-related protein-coding genes were identified, of which 71% had a putative homologue in Arabidopsis. In a reciprocal analysis, 90% of the Arabidopsis proteins had a putative homologue in the predicted rice proteome. Twenty-nine per cent of the 37,544 predicted genes appear in clustered gene families. The number and classes of transposable elements found in the rice genome are consistent with the expansion of syntenic regions in the maize and sorghum genomes. We find evidence for widespread and recurrent gene transfer from the organelles to the nuclear chromosomes. The map-based sequence has proven useful for the identification of genes underlying agronomic traits. The additional single-nucleotide polymorphisms and simple sequence repeats identified in our study should accelerate improvements in rice production.

3,423 citations