• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.307-315
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• 2022

Artemisinin is a secondary metabolite of Artemisia annua that shows potent anti-malarial, anti-bacterial, antiviral, and anti-tumor effects. The supply of artemisinin depends on its content in Artemisia annua, in which various environmental factors can affect the plant's biosynthetic yield. In this study, the effects of different light-emitting diode (LED)-irradiation conditions were tested to optimize the germination and growth of Artemisia annua for the enhanced production of artemisinin. Specifically, the ratio between the red and blue lights in the irradiating LED was varied for investigation as follows: [Red : Blue] = [6 : 4], [7 : 3], and [8 : 2]. Furthermore, additional stress factors like UV-B-irradiation (1,395 ㎼/cm²), low temperature (4℃), and dehydration were also explored to induce hormetic expressions of ADS, CYP, and ALDH1, which are essential genes for the biosynthesis of artemisinin. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was used to analyze the expression levels of the respective genes and their correlation with the specified conditions. [8 : 2] LED-irradiation was the most optimal among the tested conditions for the cultivation of Artemisia annua in terms of both fresh and dry weights post-harvest. For the production of artemisinin, however, [7 : 3] LED-irradiation with dehydration for six hours pre-harvest was the most optimal condition by inducing around twofold enhancement in the biosynthetic yield of artemisinin. As expected, a correlation was observed between the expression levels of the genes and the contents of artemisinin accumulated.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.274-281
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• 2019

Pistacia chinensis Bunge has not only been used as a medicinal plant to treat various illnesses but its young shoots and leaves have also been used as vegetables. In addition, P. chinensis is used as a rootstock for Pistacia vera (pistachio). Here, the transcriptome of P. chinensis was sequenced to enrich genetic resources and identify secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways using Illumina RNA-seq methods. De novo assembly resulted in 18,524 unigenes with an average length of 873 bp from 19 million RNA-seq reads. A Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) annotation tool assigned KO (KEGG orthology) numbers to 6,553 (36.2%) unigenes, among which 4,061 unigenes were mapped into 391 different metabolic pathways. For terpenoid backbone and carotenoid biosynthesis pathways, 44 and 22 unigenes encode enzymes corresponding to 30 and 16 entries, respectively. Twenty-two unigenes encode proteins for 16 entries of the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway. As for the phenylpropanoid and flavonoid biosynthesis pathways, 63 and 24 unigenes were homologous to 17 and 14 entry proteins, respectively. Mining of simple sequence repeat identified 2,599 simple sequence repeats from P. chinensis unigenes. The results of the present study provide a valuable resource for in-depth studies on comparative and functional genomics to unravel the underlying mechanisms of the medicinal properties of Pistacia L.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.104-109
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• 2016

Rosa rugosa is a medicinal, ornamental, and edible plant native to Eastern Asian countries, including Korea, Japan, and China. The aim of this study was to establish a system for biomass production and secondary metabolite accumulation during in vitro culture and acclimatization of Rosa rugosa. The highest rate of multiple shoot proliferation was achieved with $8.8{\mu}M$ benzyladenine (BA) (83.3%). However, the number of shoots (14.4 per explant) at $4.4{\mu}M$ BA was higher than that at $8.8{\mu}M$ BA. Compared to BA, a combination of thidiazuron (TDZ) and indole butyric acid (IBA) exhibited significantly lower shoot induction, with only 50.0~79.2% and 4.2~16.7% relative shoot formation, respectively. During acclimatization, shoots were sampled every week and their total phenolic contents were analyzed. Among various growth factors, fresh weight showed the most dramatic increase from the 3rd week (88.0 mg/plant) to 4th week (132.7 mg/plant). Total phenolics and flavonoids contents were the highest at $1^{st}$ week of acclimatization. Depending on developmental stages, total phenolics and flavonoids contents were higher in 1-yr-old shoots grown ex vitro than in those of older field-grown or in vitro-grown plants. Amongst different ages of field grown plants, 6-year-old plants, the oldest in this study, showed the lowest content in total phenolics.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.42-47
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• 2023

Carthamus tinctorius L. (known as safflower) is a valuable oil plant whose importance is increasing rapidly in the world due to its high adaptation to arid regions. The seeds of this unique plant are especially used in edible oil, soap, paint, varnish and lacquer production. Its flowers are used in vegetable dye production and medicinal purposes beside its features as a coloring and flavoring in food. After the oil is removed, the remaining pulp and plant parts are used as animal feed, and dry straw residues are used as fuel. Beside all these features, its usage as a herbal medicinal plants for various diseases has gained importance on recent years. In this study, it was designed a plant metabolomic approach which transfers all the recent data processing strategies of untargeted metabolomics in clinical applications to the present study. Q-TOF LC/MS-based analysis of the extracts (70% ethanol, hexane, and chloroform) for both seed and flowers was performed using a C18 column (Agilent Zorbax 1.8 µM, 100 × 2.1 mm). Differences were observed in seed and fruit extracts and these differences were visualized using principal component analysis (PCA) plots. The total number and intersections of the peaks in the extracts were visualized using peak count comparison graph. Based on the experimental results, the number of the detected peaks for seeds was higher than the ones for the flowers for all solvent systems to extract the samples.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.225-234
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• 2024

Chinese lobelia (Lobelia chinensis Lour.) is an important medicinal plant that is used in traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese medicine. The goal of the current study was to develop an in vitro propagation technique for Lobelia chinensis. We have examined the effects of different media compositions on the regeneration of shoots from nodal cultures of Lobelia chinensis, including Murashige and Skoog (MS), Gamborg (B5), Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH), Woody plant (WPM), Chu (N6), and Nitsch and Nitsch (NLN) media. Similar to this, shoot regeneration was examined using MS medium of double (2.0), full (1.0), half (0.5), and quarter (0.25) strengths. The regeneration of shoots was also examined with additions of 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7% (w/v) sucrose to MS media. For axillary shoot regeneration, full-strength MS medium supplemented with 3% (w/v) sucrose was shown to be the most effective of all the evaluated factors. On this medium, nodal explants optimally regenerated 4.5 shoots per explant and subsequently shoots involved in rooting on the same medium. The regenerated plants possessed abundant phenolics, flavonoids, and DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP antioxidant activities. High performance liquid chromatographic examination (HPLC) of the regenerated plants revealed an accumulation of myricetin and catechin in higher amounts.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.12-24
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• 2010

Plant metabolomics is a research field for identifying all of the metabolites found in a certain plant cell, tissue, organ, or whole plant in a given time and conditions and for studying changes in metabolic profiling as time goes or conditions change. Metabolomics is one of the most recently developed omics for holistic approach to biology and is a kind of systems biology. Metabolomics or metabolite fingerprinting techniques usually involves collecting spectra of crude solvent extracts without purification and separation of pure compounds or not in standardized conditions. Therefore, that requires a high degree of reproducibility, which can be achieved by using a standardized method for sample preparation and data acquisition and analysis. In plant biology, metabolomics is applied for various research fields including rapid discrimination between plant species, cultivar and GM plants, metabolic evaluation of commercial food stocks and medicinal herbs, understanding various physiological, stress responses, and determination of gene functions. Recently, plant metabolomics is applied for characterization of gene function often in combination with transcriptomics by analyzing tagged mutants of the model plants of Arabidopsis and rice. The use of plant metabolomics combined by transcriptomics in functional genomics will be the challenge for the coming year. This review paper attempted to introduce current status and prospects of plant metabolomics research.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.181-185
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• 2003

Callus and suspension cultures derived from leaf explants of Plumbago rosea were established on Murashige and Skoog's medium containing 1 mg/L IAA, 0.5 mg/L NAA and 0.3 mg/L BAP. Callus cultures were tested for their growth and accumulation of plumbagin, a naphthoquinone and was identified by $^1H$ NMR and electron ionization mass spectroscopy. While auxins (not 2,4-D) influenced growth and plumbagin accumulation, cytokinins did not influence them much. Increasing concentrations of IAA in presence of NAA and BAP increased plumbagin in suspensions only up to 1 mg/L. Growth of callus was optimum (8.3 g DCW/I) at a hormonal combination of 1.5 mg/L IAA, 0.5 mg/L NAA and 0.3 mg/L BAP, but high plumbagin accumulation (4.9 mg/g DCW) was recorded at 1.0 mg/L IAA plus 0.3 mg/L BAP. Since instability in growth and secondary metabolite accumulation was noticed, several cell lines/clumps of callus were screened for plumbagin accumulation by visual and analytical methods. Biomass and accumulation of plumbagin showed a negative correlation in several cell lines. But one cell line showed stability both in terms of biomass and plumbagin accumulation over a period of 6 months.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.648-657
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• 2008

In this study, we used functional genomic strategies, proteomics and quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR, to advance our understanding of genes associated with fumonisin production in the fungus Fusarium verticillioides. Earlier studies have demonstrated that deletion of the FCC1 gene, which encodes a C-type cyclin, leads to a drastic reduction in fumonisin production and conidiation in the mutant strain (FT536). The premise of our research was that comparative analysis of F. verticillioides wild-type and FT536 proteomes will reveal putative proteins, and ultimately corresponding genes, that are important for fumonisin biosynthesis. We isolated proteins that were significantly upregulated in either the wild type or FT536 via two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and subsequently obtained sequences by mass spectrometry. Homologs of identified proteins, e.g., carboxypeptidase, laccase, and nitrogen metabolite repression protein, are known to have functions involved in fungal secondary metabolism and development. We also identified gene sequences corresponding to the selected proteins and investigated their transcriptional profiles via quantitative real-time (qRT)-PCR in order to identify genes that show concomitant expression patterns during fumonisin biosynthesis. These genes can be selected as targets for functional analysis to further verify their roles in $FB_1$ biosynthesis.

• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.9-13
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• 2007

Hexane extract of Porteresia coarctata (Roxb.) exhibits a toxic effect on the tissues of Spodoptera litura (F) while fed at the dose of 1000 and 2000 ppm thoroughly mixing with castor leaves (Ricinus communis L) after dissolving in DMSO at late fourth instar whereas only DMSO treated castor leaves were fed to control group. The larvae were put to rear at $28^{\circ}C{\pm}1^{\circ}C$, $76{\pm}4%$ R.H. under 12 L + 12 D photoperiodic regime. In test group insects substantial reduction of protein and DNA content was marked in fat body and midgut tissues compared to DMSO treated control group. The significant biochemical alterations in the midgut tissues and fat body of test group insects indicate the insecticidal property of the said plant extract that could be tested in facilitating the phenomenal stride in Integrated Pest Management.

• Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.20-24
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• 1996

Pseudomonas fluorescens ps88 was isolated from the rhizosphere soil produced the secondary metabolite called siderophore under iron Limited conditions. On iron limiting KMB medium this strain inhibited the growth of Pythium ultimum, Pyricularia oryzae, Rhizoctonia solani and Xanthomonas oryzae. Cucumber seeds were coated with the strain ps88 and were grown in green house soil. Forty days after the seed emergence, disease incidence caused by Fusarium oxysporium was reduced up to 50%. When the cucumber plants were grown in vermiculite, a significant fresh weight was increased. Root development of red pepper plants was also enhanced on MS medium supplemented with siderophore.