Combined metabolomic and transcriptomic analysis reveals the key genes for triterpenoid biosynthesis in Cyclocarya paliurus.

Background: Cyclocarya paliurus is a high-value tree, and it contains a variety of bioactive secondary metabolites which have broad application prospects in medicine, food and health care. Triterpenoids can improve the bioactive function of C. paliurus health tea and also improve the efficacy of health care tea.

Results: The results of this study showed that there were 69 kinds were terpenoids, and triterpenoids accounted for more than 80%. We excavated 5 kinds of triterpenoid metabolites with high content and significant difference dynamics, namely, corosolic acid, asiatic acid, maslinic acid, ursolic acid and oleanolic acid. The co-expression analysis identified CYP71D8 and CYP716A15 co-expressed with β-AS may generate oleanane type triterpenoids by modifying β-amyrin, while CYP71AN24 and CYP98A2 co-expressed with LUS may play a key role in lupine type triterpenoids biosynthesis. MYB,Whirly,WRKY and bHLH families, which showed strong correlation with function genes, may play an important role in the regulation of P450 and OSC expression. A total of 20 modules were identified by WGCNA analysis, and CYP71AU50 and CYP716A15 in tan and orange modules may play a major role in the synthesis of oleanolic acid, ursolic acid and asiatic acid, while CYP82D47 in lightcyan 1 module may be the hub gene for the biosynthesis of corosolic acid and maslinic acid.

Conclusions: Our findings mined candidate genes closely related to triterpenoid synthesis in C. paliurus. The results of this paper can provide scientific reference for breeding high-content triterpenoid varieties of C. paliurus.