Identification and functional characterisation of a new terpene synthase gene from Chrysanthemum indicum var. aromaticum

Terpene synthase (TPS) is a key enzyme in the synthesis of terpenoids in plants and plays an important role in the regulation of the synthesis of aromatic substances in plants. In this study, we treated Chrysanthemum indicum var. aromaticum as the experimental material to clone the CiTPS gene. The open reading frame of CiTPS is 1 818 bp, encoding a putative protein of 605 amino acids. There is a monoterpene synthase conserved domain and a highly conserved sequence, DDXXD, (N,D)D(L,I,V)X(S,T)XXXE and RRX8W, respectively, which belong to the monoterpene synthase family. The multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that the CiTPS gene belongs to the TPS-b subfamily. The pBI121-TPS-GFP recombinant plasmid and the pBI121-GFP empty vector plasmid were introduced into Agrobacterium by electroporation and transferred into wild-type tobacco by the Agrobacterium-mediated method. Three transgenic CiTPS lines were screened, and the secretions of wild-type tobacco and transgenic tobacco T1 leaves in the vigorous growth period were analysed. The volatiles of the transgenic lines were similar to those of wild-type tobacco, but their monoterpenes increased significantly, and the sesquiterpenoids and diterpenoids decreased or remained unchanged, indicating that the CiTPS gene is related to the synthesis of the monoterpenes.

Automated summary

In this study, the CiTPS gene was cloned and found to belong to the TPS-b subfamily of the monoterpene synthase family. Transgenic tobacco experiments showed that the CiTPS gene can significantly increase the content of monoterpenes. These findings are important for understanding the regulation of aromatic substance synthesis in plants.