Abstract
Resveratrol is one of the most studied plant secondary metabolites owing to its numerous health benefits. It is accumulated in some plants following biotic and abiotic stress pressures, including UV-C irradiation. Polygonum cuspidatum represents the major natural source of concentrated resveratrol but the underlying mechanisms as well as the effects of UV-C irradiation on resveratrol content have not yet been documented. Herein, we found that UV-C irradiation significantly increased by 2.6-fold and 1.6-fold the resveratrol content in irradiated leaf samples followed by a dark incubation for 6 h and 12 h, respectively, compared to the untreated samples. De novo transcriptome sequencing and assembly resulted into 165,013 unigenes with 98 unigenes mapped to the resveratrol biosynthetic pathway. Differential expression analysis showed that P. cuspidatum strongly induced the genes directly involved in the resveratrol synthesis, including phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, cinnamic acid 4-hydroxylase, 4-coumarate-CoA ligase and stilbene synthase (STS) genes, while strongly decreased the chalcone synthase (CHS) genes after exposure to UV-C. Since CHS and STS share the same substrate, P. cuspidatum tends to preferentially divert the substrate to the resveratrol synthesis pathway under UV-C treatment. We identified several members of the MYB, bHLH and ERF families as potential regulators of the resveratrol biosynthesis genes.
Highlights
Polygonum cuspidatum Sieb. et Zucc. is a member of the buckwheat family (Polygonaceae)
Polygonum cuspidatum leaves were treated with UV-C light for 10 min and incubated in the dark for 6 h (PC6H) and 12 h (PC12H)
We found that P. cuspidatum leaf contained a very high level of resveratrol (1000 μg/g FW) and UV-C could significantly induce the resveratrol accumulation (Figure 1), indicating that UV-C irradiation represented a good prospect for increasing resveratrol content in P. cuspidatum
Summary
Polygonum cuspidatum Sieb. et Zucc. is a member of the buckwheat family (Polygonaceae). Is a member of the buckwheat family (Polygonaceae) It is a tall and resilient herbaceous perennial with woody rhizomes [1], native to East Asia in countries such as Korea, Japan and China. This plant has been recognized as an invasive species in Europe and North America [2,3], P. cuspidatum has an extraordinary value in phytotherapy. One of the most important compounds in P. cuspidatum roots, which has drawn growing interest on this species, is resveratrol, a molecule with proven anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity [9,10]
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