Abstract
G. pentaphyllum (Gynostemma pentaphyllum), a creeping herbaceous perennial with many important medicinal properties, is widely distributed in Asia. Gypenosides (triterpenoid saponins), the main effective components of G. pentaphyllum, are well studied. FPS (farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase), SS (squalene synthase), and SE (squalene epoxidase) are the main enzymes involved in the synthesis of triterpenoid saponins. Considering the important medicinal functions of G. pentaphyllum, it is necessary to investigate the transcriptomic information of G. pentaphyllum to facilitate future studies of transcriptional regulation. After sequencing G. pentaphyllum, we obtained 50,654,708 unigenes. Next, we used RPKM (reads per kilobases per million reads) to calculate expression of the unigenes and we performed comparison of our data to that contained in five common databases to annotate different aspects of the unigenes. Finally, we noticed that FPS, SS, and SE showed differential expression of enzymes in DESeq. Leaves showed the highest expression of FPS, SS, and SE relative to the other two tissues. Our research provides transcriptomic information of G. pentaphyllum in its natural environment and we found consistency in unigene expression, enzymes expression (FPS, SS, and SE), and the distribution of gypenosides content in G. pentaphyllum. Our results will enable future related studies of G. pentaphyllum.
Highlights
Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino is a kind of creeping herbaceous perennial that is distributed in Asia
G. pentaphyllum grows in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, and Malaysia [1]
It is currently a hot topic to study the differential expression of the transcriptome and the regulation of transcription of plants in response to stresses of a special environment or other genetic factors [57,58,59,60,61,62,63]. Another interesting observation was that the transcriptome sequences of G. pentaphyllum determined in our study showed high similarity to the transcriptome sequences related to bitterness in cucumber as reported previously [64]
Summary
Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino is a kind of creeping herbaceous perennial that is distributed in Asia. Gynostemma pentaphyllum (G. pentaphyllum) grows in many places of China, including Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hubei, Anhui, Hebei, Jiangsu, Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, and Shanxi and in Taiwan. G. pentaphyllum grows in neighboring countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, and Malaysia (data was obtained from the Checklist of South China Botanical Garden) [1]. Gypenosides (triterpenoid saponins), the major effective components of G. pentaphyllum, have various bioactivities that explain the extensive application of G. pentaphyllum in natural medicines [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Other functions like anticancer function, anti-inflammatory function, antianxiety function, blood fat-reducing, liver cells-protecting, neuroprotection, and immunoprotection have been reported [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
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