Metabolic and Transcriptomic Analyses Reveal the Effects of Ethephon on Taraxacum kok-saghyz Rodin

Zhanjiang Zhang; Guang Shen; Yihua Yang; Cui Li; Xiaoying Chen; Xiaonan Yang; Xiaoyun Guo; Jianhua Miao; Li Li; Ming Lei

doi:10.3390/molecules27113548

Metabolic and Transcriptomic Analyses Reveal the Effects of Ethephon on Taraxacum kok-saghyz Rodin

Molecules. 2022 May 31;27(11):3548. doi: 10.3390/molecules27113548.

Authors

Zhanjiang Zhang¹, Guang Shen², Yihua Yang², Cui Li^{3

4}, Xiaoying Chen^{3

4}, Xiaonan Yang^{3

4}, Xiaoyun Guo^{3

4}, Jianhua Miao^{3

4}, Li Li⁵, Ming Lei^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Guangxi Key Laboratory for High-Quality Formation and Utilization of Dao-di Herbs, Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning 530023, China.
² Institute of Natural Resources and Ecology, Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences, Harbin 150040, China.
³ Guangxi Key Laboratory of Medicinal Resources Protection and Genetic Improvement, Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning 530023, China.
⁴ Guangxi Engineering Research Center of TCM Resource Intelligent Creation, Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants, Nanning 530023, China.
⁵ School of Modern Industry for Selenium Science and Engineering, National R&D Center for Se-Rich Agricultural Products Processing Technology, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan 430023, China.

Abstract

The roots of Taraxacum kok-saghyz Rodin (TKS) are well-known and valued for their rubber-producing ability. Therefore, research on the analysis and detection of metabolites from the roots of TKS have been reported in previous studies. However, all of these studies have the shortcoming of focusing on only the rubber of TKS, without profiling the other metabolites in a systematic and comprehensive way. Here, the primary and secondary metabolites from the leaves of TKS were investigated using UPLC-ESI-MS/MS, and a total of 229 metabolites were characterized. Carboxylic acid derivatives, fatty acyls, phenols, and organooxygen compounds were found to be the major metabolites of TKS. The transcriptome data indicated that ribosomal, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and linoleic acid metabolism genes were significantly differentially expressed. This study is the first to report the differences in the metabolic and transcriptome profiles of TKS leaves under exogenous ethephon spray, which improves our understanding of the main metabolites and their molecular mechanisms in TKS leaves.

Keywords: Taraxacum kok-saghyz Rodin; metabolomics; transcriptomics.

MeSH terms

Organophosphorus Compounds
Rubber
Tandem Mass Spectrometry
Taraxacum* / genetics
Transcriptome

Substances

Organophosphorus Compounds
Rubber
ethephon

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Guangxi Innovation-Driven Development Project (GuiKe AA18242040), National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFC1711000, 2019YFC1711008), Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Academy of Sciences (KY2019ZR02), and Innovation Group Project of Guangxi Botanical Garden of Medicinal Plants (2019010, 2019011).