The ancient CYP716 family is a major contributor to the diversification of eudicot triterpenoid biosynthesis

Karel Miettinen, Jacob Pollier, Dieter Buyst, Philipp Arendt, René Csuk, Sven Sommerwerk, Tessa Moses, Jan Mertens, Prashant D Sonawane, Laurens Pauwels, Asaph Aharoni, José Martins, David R. Nelson and Alain Goossens ()
Additional contact information
Karel Miettinen: VIB
Jacob Pollier: VIB
Dieter Buyst: Ghent University
Philipp Arendt: VIB
René Csuk: Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Sven Sommerwerk: Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Tessa Moses: VIB
Jan Mertens: VIB
Prashant D Sonawane: Weizmann Institute of Science
Laurens Pauwels: VIB
Asaph Aharoni: Weizmann Institute of Science
José Martins: Ghent University
David R. Nelson: Immunology and Biochemistry, University of Tennessee Health Science Center
Alain Goossens: VIB

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Triterpenoids are widespread bioactive plant defence compounds with potential use as pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other high-value products. Enzymes belonging to the cytochrome P450 family have an essential role in creating the immense structural diversity of triterpenoids across the plant kingdom. However, for many triterpenoid oxidation reactions, the corresponding enzyme remains unknown. Here we characterize CYP716 enzymes from different medicinal plant species by heterologous expression in engineered yeasts and report ten hitherto unreported triterpenoid oxidation activities, including a cyclization reaction, leading to a triterpenoid lactone. Kingdom-wide phylogenetic analysis of over 400 CYP716s from over 200 plant species reveals details of their evolution and suggests that in eudicots the CYP716s evolved specifically towards triterpenoid biosynthesis. Our findings underscore the great potential of CYP716s as a source for generating triterpenoid structural diversity and expand the toolbox available for synthetic biology programmes for sustainable production of bioactive plant triterpenoids.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14153 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14153

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14153

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().