Abstract
Cosmos caudatus Kunth. or “king’s salad” contains high values of nutritional compounds that act as health promoters. Although widely consumed for its medicinal value, information on phytochemical contents and their biosynthesis in the species is scarce. Among the interesting compounds are the anthocyanins that possess a dual role; an antioxidant and natural colorant. A complete anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway in C. caudatus was elucidated using transcriptomics, metabolomics, and anatomical approaches in this study. The transcriptomic analysis revealed genes encoding enzymes in the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway and the genes encoding the transcription factors relevant to the latter pathway. A total of 11 anthocyanins of cyanidin, pelargonidin, and delphinidin derivatives that are significantly abundant in the species were identified, correlating with the anthocyanin mainstream gene pathway. The occurrence of anthocyanin was further validated by light microscopy. Anthocyanin pigments in C. caudatus were detected at the epidermal layer of the leaf, stem, and flower, and at the cortex of stem and root. To our knowledge, this is the first work that has delineated the complete anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway in Malaysia’s underutilized plant, C. caudatus Kunth. This study correlated multi-omics data that will help integrate systems biology and synthetic biology, for a detailed understanding of the molecular mechanism and characterization of the anthocyanin biosynthesis using heterologous expression studies.
Highlights
Anthocyanin has garnered the attention of researchers due to its potent antioxidant properties and potential for lowering the risk of cancer [1], heart problems [2,3], regulating blood glucose level [4], and acting in preventing carcinogenesis [5]
More information needs to be gained to shed light on this important species; we further expanded the investigation by employing advanced and holistic omics methodologies. This is the first report of complementary approaches, in which the C. caudatus transcriptome analysis was combined with metabolite profiling and anatomical investigation of the leaf, flower, stem, and root, to describe the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathways in C. caudatus
The open reading frames (ORFs) analysis using Transdecoder showed that 89.34% of the total transcripts (167,252 sequences) contained the predicted coadidnigtiosenq, utheenocepsen(CrDeaSd).inAgmfroanmgetsh(eOpRrFeds)icatneadlyCsDisSu,s1i8n.g74T%ran(3s1d,e3c3o8dseerqsuheonwceesd) tchoantta8i9n.3e4d% botfhthsetatrottalntdrasntoscpricpotds o(1n6,7i,n2d52icsaetiqnugenthcese) ctoranntasicnreipdtsthceopnrtaedinicetdedfuclol‐dleingtsheqCuDenS.ces (CDS)
Summary
Anthocyanin has garnered the attention of researchers due to its potent antioxidant properties and potential for lowering the risk of cancer [1], heart problems [2,3], regulating blood glucose level [4], and acting in preventing carcinogenesis [5]. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) of RNA in transcriptome analysis has been widely used to analyze specific genes for identifying various biosynthetic pathways This technique is crucial and advantageous in exploring non-model plants [27,28,29]. More information needs to be gained to shed light on this important species; we further expanded the investigation by employing advanced and holistic omics methodologies This is the first report of complementary approaches, in which the C. caudatus transcriptome analysis was combined with metabolite profiling and anatomical investigation of the leaf, flower, stem, and root, to describe the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathways in C. caudatus
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