Isoflavonoids, the diverse group of secondary metabolites derived from the phenylpropanoid pathway, are distributed predominantly in leguminous plants and play a vital role in promoting human health. Genetic engineering of the metabolite synthesis pathway has turned out to be an attractive approach for the production of various secondary metabolites. In our study, we attempted to produce the isoflavone genistein, a well-known health-promoting metabolite, in Allium cepa L. (onion) by introducing Glycine max Isoflavone synthase (GmIFS). The GmIFS gene was cloned into the pEarleyGate 102 HA vector and transformed into onion by Agrobacterium-mediated and biolistic methods. The presence of GmIFS in transgenic onion was confirmed by PCR, dot blot, and Southern hybridization. Analysis of the transgenic onion calli lines demonstrated that the expression of the GmIFS gene led to the production of isoflavone genistein in in vitro tissues. The biolistic stable transformed calli with transformation efficiency of 73% (62.65 nM/g FW) accumulated more genistein than the Agrobacterium stable transformed calli with transformation efficiency of 56% (42.5 nM/g FW). Overall, heterologous gene expression of GmIFS was demonstrated by modifying the secondary metabolite pathway in onion tissues for the production of isoflavone genistein that can boost up human health with its health-promoting properties.
Keywords: genistein; isoflavone synthase; isoflavonoids; micropropagation; naringenin; onion; transformation.