Identification and analysis of sucrose synthase gene family associated with polysaccharide biosynthesis in Dendrobium catenatum by transcriptomic analysis

Min Jiang; Shangyun Li; Changling Zhao; Mingfu Zhao; Shaozhong Xu; Guosong Wen

doi:10.7717/peerj.13222

Identification and analysis of sucrose synthase gene family associated with polysaccharide biosynthesis in Dendrobium catenatum by transcriptomic analysis

PeerJ. 2022 Apr 5:10:e13222. doi: 10.7717/peerj.13222. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Min Jiang^#^{1

2}, Shangyun Li^#¹, Changling Zhao¹, Mingfu Zhao¹, Shaozhong Xu¹, Guosong Wen¹

Affiliations

¹ Research & Development Center for Heath Product, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming, China.
² Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, Institute of Eco-Chongming (IEC), School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Dendrobium catenatum is a valuable traditional medicinal herb with high commercial value. D. catenatum stems contain abundant polysaccharides which are one of the main bioactive components. However, although some genes related to the synthesis of the polysaccharides have been reported, more key genes need to be further elucidated.

Results: In this study, the contents of polysaccharides and mannose in D. catenatum stems at four developmental stages were compared, and the stems' transcriptomes were analyzed to explore the synthesis mechanism of the polysaccharides. Many genes involved in starch and sucrose metabolisms were identified by KEGG pathway analysis. Further analysis found that sucrose synthase (SUS; EC 2.4.1.13) gene maybe participated in the polysaccharide synthesis. Hence, we further investigated the genomic characteristics and evolution relationships of the SUS family in plants. The result suggested that the SUS gene of D. catenatum (DcSUS) had undergone the expansion characterized by tandem duplication which might be related to the enrichment of the polysaccharides in D. catenatum stems. Moreover, expression analyses of the DcSUS displayed significant divergent patterns in different tissues and could be divided into two main groups in the stems with four developmental stages.

Conclusion: In general, our results revealed that DcSUS is likely involved in the metabolic process of the stem polysaccharides, providing crucial clues for exploiting the key genes associated with the polysaccharide synthesis.

Keywords: Dendrobium catenatum; Evolution; Expression analysis; Mannose; RNA-Seq; SUS.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Dendrobium* / genetics
Gene Expression Profiling
Polysaccharides
Transcriptome* / genetics

Substances

sucrose synthase
Polysaccharides

Grants and funding

This research were funded from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81360611) and Shanghai Sailing Program (19YF1414800). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.