Recently, the team of Li Ping/Lu Xu from School of Traditional Chinese Medicine/National Key Laboratory of Multi-Target Natural Medicines of the University of China, together with Yin Xiaojian from Northeast Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research paper titled “Identification of a central regulator of ginkgolide biosynthesis in Ginkgo biloba that integrates jasmonate and light signaling” in the prestigious international journal PNAS. Identification of a central regulator of ginkgolide biosynthesis in Ginkgo biloba that integrates jasmonate and light signaling” was published in the prestigious international journal PNAS. Du Jinfa, a PhD student of our university in the class of 2021, is the first author of this paper, and China Pharmaceutical University is the first corresponding organization.
Ginkgo biloba, as a traditional Chinese herbal medicine for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, has significant differences in quality and efficacy among different places of origin, and the quality and efficacy of ginkgo biloba from the Daoji area are better. Studies have shown that the formation of ginkgo biloba daoji is closely related to environmental factors and hormone signaling regulatory mechanisms. Ginkgo biloba extract contains two major classes of active ingredients, flavonoids and lactones, of which lactones are secondary metabolites unique to ginkgo. Although light and jasmonic acid (JA) play key roles in plant development and secondary metabolite accumulation, the molecular mechanisms of how they synergistically regulate the biosynthesis of ginkgolides have not been fully elucidated.
The team's study identified a molecular module consisting of three AP2/ERF-like transcription factors, GbEAG, and their reciprocal proteins, JA signaling member, GbJAZ3, and light signaling member, GbHY5, as key regulatory hubs for ginkgolide biosynthesis. Through systematic analysis, the authors found that these proteins activate ginkgolide biosynthesis pathway genes by integrating tissue-specific JA and light signaling, thus synergistically regulating ginkgolide production in ginkgo roots. This finding not only provides a solid theoretical foundation for enhancing the ginkgolide content through molecular breeding and gene editing techniques and thus preventing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, but also provides important evidence for analyzing the mechanism of the interaction between environmental factors and hormone signaling in the formation of the tao-ness of Chinese herbal medicines.
This work was supported by the Capacity Building for Sustainable Utilization of Chinese Medicine Resources (2060302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81973414), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFC1711000), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20191319), and the “Dual First Class” Project ( CPU2022QZ27).
Link to the paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408891122
