Background:The interaction between muscle tissues and bone metabolism has recently been noted. Results: Osteoglycin is produced in myoblastic cells and enhances bone formation parameters in osteoblasts. Conclusion: Osteoglycin may be a crucial humoral bone anabolic factor that is produced by muscle tissues. Significance: Osteoglycin may be the first potential humoral bone anabolic factor produced from muscle cells.
Lignans are structurally and functionally diverse phytochemicals biosynthesized in diverse plant species and have received wide attentions as leading compounds of novel drugs for tumor treatment and healthy diets to reduce of the risks of lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases. However, the lineage-specific distribution and the low-amount of production in natural plants, some of which are endangered species, hinder the efficient and stable production of beneficial lignans. Accordingly, the development of new procedures for lignan production is of keen interest. Recent marked advances in the molecular and functional characterization of lignan biosynthetic enzymes and endogenous and exogenous factors for lignan biosynthesis have suggested new methods for the metabolic engineering of lignan biosynthesis cascades leading to the efficient, sustainable, and stable lignan production in plants, including plant cell/organ cultures. Optimization of light conditions, utilization of a wide range of elicitor treatments, and construction of transiently gene-transfected or transgenic lignan-biosynthesizing plants are mainly being attempted. This review will present the basic and latest knowledge regarding metabolic engineering of lignans based on their biosynthetic pathways and biological activities, and the perspectives in lignan production via metabolic engineering.
Significance
Specific gene functions have been successfully suppressed by gene silencing or editing in many organisms. However, genetic manipulation to suppress the function of a target tissue has not been achieved using cytotoxin genes. We established transgenic silkworms with posterior silk glands (PSGs) that express the enzymatic domain of the cytotoxin pierisin-1A (P1A). The larvae with the modified PSGs produced the sericin cocoons with potential utilities in tissue engineering. The targeted P1A expression was found to cause site-specific repression of certain protein synthesis that appeared to have no impact on the developmental stages of individuals. Thus, the new approach through targeted P1A expression could be applicable to the development of biologically useful model organisms with tissue-specific dysfunction.
Forsythia spp. are perennial woody plants which are one of the most extensively used medicinal sources of Chinese medicines and functional diets owing to their lignan contents. Lignans have received widespread attention as leading compounds in the development of antitumor drugs and healthy diets for reducing the risks of lifestyle-related diseases. However, the molecular basis of Forsythia has yet to be established. In this study, we have verified de novo deep transcriptome of Forsythia koreana leaf and callus using the Illumina HiSeq 1500 platform. A total of 89 million reads were assembled into 116,824 contigs using Trinity, and 1,576 of the contigs displayed the sequence similarity to the enzymes responsible for plant specialized metabolism including lignan biosynthesis. Notably, gene ontology (GO) analysis indicated the remarkable enrichment of lignan-biosynthetic enzyme genes in the callus transcriptome. Nevertheless, precise annotation and molecular phylogenetic analyses were hindered by partial sequences of open reading frames (ORFs) of the Trinity-based contigs. To obtain more numerous contigs harboring a full-length ORF, we developed a novel overlapping layout consensus-based procedure, virtual primer-based sequence reassembly (VP-seq). VP-seq elucidated 709 full-length ORFs, whereas only 146 full-length ORFs were assembled by Trinity. The comparison of expression profiles of leaf and callus using VP-seq-based full-length ORFs revealed 50-fold upregulation of secoisolariciresinol dehydrogenase (SIRD) in callus. Expression and phylogenetic cluster analyses predicted candidates for matairesinol-glucosylating enzymes. We also performed VP-seq analysis of lignan-biosynthetic enzyme genes in the transcriptome data of other lignan-rich plants, Linum flavum, Linum usitatissimum and Podophyllum hexandrum. The comparative analysis indicated both common gene clusters involved in biosynthesis upstream of matairesinol such as SIRD and plant lineage-specific gene clusters, in particular, genes responsible for biosynthetic pathways for production of podophyllotoxin; CYP71BE54, a key enzyme gene for podophyllotoxin biosynthesis in P. hexandrum, was not found in L. flavum, although both P. hexandrum. and L. flavum yield podophyllotoxin. Altogether, these data have established the fruitful molecular basis of Forsythia and provided insight into the molecular evolution and diversity of lignan biosynthetic pathways.
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