Furanocoumarins from Heracleum persicum L.: Unveiling their biosynthesis and gene expression

Abstract

Due to the high value of Persian angelica (Heracleum persicum L.) and the limited genetic information regarding this plant, the investigation of the main secondary metabolites and corresponding biosynthesis pathway is of great importance. In this study, sequencing and transcriptome analysis were performed for both leaf and fruit tissues of H. persicum. Functional annotation and gene ontology analysis for 165,597 assembled transcripts was carried out. The most abundant categories belonged to proteins involved in cellular, metabolic, binding, and biosynthetic processes class. After comprehensive transcript annotation, the genes involved in the important metabolites biosynthesis of this plant were identified and the possible pathway for the biosynthesis of furanocoumarins and terpenoids were proposed. Finally, the relative expression of the genes involved in the biosynthesis of furanocoumarin metabolites as important compounds of this plant and their amount were investigated using real-time PCR and HPLC methods, respectively. In general, according to the results of the study, the expression of most genes in fruit tissue was higher than in leaf tissue. Angelicin synthase, bergaptol methyltransferase, and psoralen synthase in fruit tissue expressed 3.3, 2.4, and 1.9 times more than that in leaf tissue, respectively. The amount of bergapten, psoralen, xanthotoxol, and isopimpinellin in fruit was measured as 94.06, 4.6, 17.9, and 0.1 mg per gram of dry weight, respectively. Our findings will be valuable in designing metabolite engineering strategies based on genetic engineering and classical plant breeding with the aim of genetic manipulation and metabolite engineering in this plant.