De novo transcriptome assembly of Conium maculatum L. to identify candidate genes for coniine biosynthesis

Gopal Peddinti, Hannu Hotti, Teemu H. Teeri, Heiko Rischer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum L.) is a notorious weed containing the potent alkaloid coniine. Only some of the enzymes in the coniine biosynthesis have so far been characterized. Here, we utilize the next-generation RNA sequencing approach to report the first-ever transcriptome sequencing of five organs of poison hemlock: developing fruit, flower, root, leaf, and stem. Using a de novo assembly approach, we derived a transcriptome assembly containing 123,240 transcripts. The assembly is deemed high quality, representing over 88% of the near-universal ortholog genes of the Eudicots clade. Nearly 80% of the transcripts were functionally annotated using a combination of three approaches. The current study focuses on describing the coniine pathway by identifying in silico transcript candidates for polyketide reductase, l-alanine:5-keto-octanal aminotransferase, γ-coniceine reductase, and S-adenosyl-l-methionine:coniine methyltransferase. In vitro testing will be needed to confirm the assigned functions of the selected candidates.

Original languageEnglish
Article number17562
Number of pages15
JournalScientific Reports
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

The computer infrastructure provided by the Centre for Scientific Computing (CSC Finland) was used for all bioinformatics work. This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (Grant 138808 to T.H.T. and H.R.; Grant 316647 to H.H.) and VTT Ltd.

Keywords

  • Conium
  • Transcriptome
  • S-Adenosylmethionine
  • Alkaloids
  • Oxidoreductases
  • Transaminases
  • Methyltransferases/genetics
  • Alanine

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