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Biosynthetic Pathway of Tanshinones in Salvia miltiorrhiza

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The Salvia miltiorrhiza Genome

Part of the book series: Compendium of Plant Genomes ((CPG))

Abstract

Tanshinones are one of the active compounds of Danshen. They are a group of abietane-type norditerpenoid quinone natural products. Biosynthetic pathway of tanshinones in Salvia miltiorrhiza includes formation of the terpenoids common precursors, structural formation of terpenoid skeleton, and post-structural modification. With the development of omics analysis, the biopathway analysis of tanshinone has been deeply investigated. The upstream pathway genes of biosynthesis of tanshinone are conserved in plant and have been cloned. By comparative omics analysis from different tissues, different development stages, or different treatments, two terpenoid synthases and three P450s specific for biosynthesis of tanshinones have been cloned from S. miltiorrhiza and functional characterized both in vivo and in vitro. Further, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology utilization of the biosynthesis pathway genes were illustrated in this section. However, the biosynthetic pathway of tanshinones from the intermediate to the end products such as tanshinone IIA still needs further investigation. The functionally known genes and metabolic engineering yeast strains for production of intermediate provide foundation for further biopathway elucidation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81573532, 81822046), Key project at central government level: The ability to establish sustainable use of valuable Chinese medicine resources (2060302), Hunan Province Universities 2011 Collaborative Innovation Center for Protection and Utilization of Hu-xiang Chinese Medicine Resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Dao-Di Herbs, National Resource Center for Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, 100700, Beijing, China

    Juan Guo & Ying Ma

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  1. Juan Guo
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  2. Ying Ma
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Correspondence to Juan Guo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China

    Shanfa Lu

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Guo, J., Ma, Y. (2019). Biosynthetic Pathway of Tanshinones in Salvia miltiorrhiza. In: Lu, S. (eds) The Salvia miltiorrhiza Genome. Compendium of Plant Genomes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24716-4_10

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