Mapping Biochemical Pathways in Maytenus ilicifolia (Celastraceae) through Integrated Proteomics and Histochemistry

Vânia Santos ,Maysa Furlan,Nathalia Baptista Dias ,Simone De Pádua Teixeira ,Mário Sérgio Palma

doi:10.21577/0103-5053.20200173

Abstract

Maytenus ilicifolia (Celastraceae) is a medicinal plant that is native to southern Brazil and is popularly known as “espinheira-santa”. From a biosynthesis perspective, this species accumulates quinonemethide triterpenes and sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids as major secondary metabolites that exhibit interesting biological properties, with antitumoral and antiprotozoal activities, respectively, being the most frequently reported. Additionally, the restricted accumulation of such compounds in the roots raises questions about the expression of proteins involved in such compartmentalization and their possible biological and/or ecological role in M. ilicifolia. Thus, this article describes the use of shotgun proteomics and histochemical studies for the characterization of the main biosynthetic pathways involved in the regulation of the metabolism in M. ilicifolia roots. This combined approaches also resulted in the identification of a series of proteins involved in the quinonemethide triterpenes and sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids, providing evidences of their differential compartmentalization.

Highlights

Plant growth and development are regulated by phytohormones and mediate responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.[1]
The histochemical analysis enabled us to locate the quinonemethide triterpenes in the outermost layers that make up the periderm, more precisely the phellem, which is characterized by having its cell walls suberized (Figure 2c)
These results are consistent with a recent report,[31] which showed that celastrol and demethylzeylasteral, two quinonemethide-type triterpenes, accumulate in suberized cell walls

Summary

Introduction

Plant growth and development are regulated by phytohormones and mediate responses to biotic and abiotic stresses.[1] In response to stress, plants synthesize and accumulate a wide diversity of secondary metabolites, which are involved in biological and ecological functions.[2,3]. Many of these compounds have shown biological activity and are considered to be prototypes for the synthesis of a large number of drugs,[4] accounting for more than 50% of all drugs employed in modern therapies.[5]. Several biological activities have been described for these two classes of metabolites, including antioxidant, antifungal, antiproliferative, antiprotozoal, antitumoral, antimicrobial, and inhibitor of hepatitis C virus, antiprotozoal, relating to quinonemethide triterpenes and sesquiterpene pyridine alkaloids, respectively.[9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion