Geng Chen, Zhaokuan Guo, Yanyu Shu, Yan Zhao, Lei Qiu, Shaofeng Duan, Yuan Lin, Simei He, Xiaobo Li, Xiaolin Feng, Guisheng Xiang, Bo Nian, Yina Wang, Zhiyuan Li, Chongkang Yang, Yang Shi, Yingchun Lu, Guanze Liu, Shengchao Yang, Guanghui Zhang, Bing Hao
Cucurbitacin IIa is a triterpenoid isolated exclusively from Hemsleya plants, which is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug that function as the main ingredient of prescription Hemslecin capsules and tablets in China. Synthetic biology provides new strategies for producing such valuable cucurbitacins in large-scale, however, the biosynthetic pathway of cucurbitacin IIa was still unknown and heterologous production of cucurbitacins in galactose medium was expensive and low-yield. In this study, the functions of two squalene epoxidases (HcSE1-2), six OSC genes (HcOSC1-6), two CYP450 (HcCYP87D20 and HcCYP81Q59) and acyltransferases (HcAT1) involved in cucurbitacin IIa biosynthesis were characterised by heterologous expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Nicotiana benthamiana...
February 28, 2024: Plant communications