Carotenoids are the precursors of important fragrance compounds in flowers of Osmanthus fragrans Lour. var. aurantiacus, which exhibit the highest diversity of carotenoid-derived volatiles among the flowering plants investigated. A cDNA encoding a carotenoid cleavage enzyme, OfCCD1, was identified from transcripts isolated from flowers of O. fragrans Lour. It is shown that the recombinant enzymes cleave carotenes to produce alpha-ionone and beta-ionone in in vitro assays. It was also found that carotenoid content, volatile emissions, and OfCCD1 transcript levels are subjected to photorhythmic changes and principally increased during daylight hours. At the times when OfCCD1 transcript levels reached their maxima, the carotenoid content remained low or slightly decreased. The emission of ionones was also higher during the day; however, emissions decreased at a lower rate than the transcript levels. Moreover, carotenoid content increased from the first to the second day, whereas the volatile release decreased, and the OfCCD1 transcript levels displayed steady-state oscillations, suggesting that the substrate availability in the cellular compartments is changing or other regulatory factors are involved in volatile norisoprenoid formation. Furthermore, the sensory evaluation of the aroma of the model mixtures suggests that the proportionally higher contribution of alpha-ionone and beta-ionone to total volatile emissions in the evening is probably the reason for the increased perception by humans of the scent emission of Osmanthus flowers.
Let G be a finite p-group and k be a field of characteristic p > 0. We show that G has a non-linear faithful action on a polynomial ring U of dimension n = log p (|G|) such that the invariant ring U G is also polynomial. This contrasts with the case of linear and graded group actions with polynomial rings of invariants, where the classical theorem of Chevalley-Shephard-Todd and Serre requires G to be generated by pseudo-reflections. Our result is part of a general theory of 'trace surjective G-algebras', which, in the case of p-groups, coincide with the Galois ring extensions in the sense of Chase, Harrison and Rosenberg ['Galois theory and Galois cohomology of commutative rings ', Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 52 (1965) 15-33]. We consider the dehomogenized symmetric algebra D k , a polynomial ring with non-linear G-action, containing U as a retract and we show that D G k is a polynomial ring. Thus, U turns out to be universal in the sense that every trace surjective G-algebra can be constructed from U by 'forming quotients and extending invariants'. As a consequence we obtain a general structure theorem for Galois extensions with given p-group as Galois group and any prescribed commutative k-algebra R as invariant ring. This is a generalization of the Artin-Schreier-Witt theory of modular Galois field extensions of degree p s .
A previous study found that 1-phenylethanol (1PE) was a major endogenous volatile compound in tea (Camellia sinensis) flowers and can be transformed to glycosically conjugated 1PE (1PE-Gly). However, occurrences of 1PE-Gly in plants remain unknown. In this study, four 1PE-Glys have been isolated from tea flowers. Three of them were determined as (R)-1PE β-d-glucopyranoside ((R)-1PE-Glu), (S)-1PE-Glu, and (S)-1PE β-primeveroside ((S)-1PE-Pri), respectively, on the basis of NMR, MS, LC-MS, and GC-MS evidence. The other one was identified as (R)-1PE-Pri on the basis of LC-MS and GC-MS data. Moreover, these 1PE-Glys were chemically synthesized as the authentic standards to further confirm their occurrences in tea flowers. 1PE-Glu had a higher molar concentration than 1PE-Pri in each floral stage and organ. The ratio of (R) to (S) differed between 1PE-Glu and 1PE-Pri. In addition, a 1PE-Gly hydrolase β-primeverosidase recombinant protein produced in Escherichia coli exhibited high hydrolysis activity toward (R)-1PE-Pri. However, β-primeverosidase transcript level was not highly expressed in the anther part, which accumulated the highest contents of 1PE-Gly and 1PE. This suggests that 1PE-Gly may not be easily hydrolyzed to liberate 1PE in tea flowers. This study provides evidence of occurrences of 1PE-Glys in plants for the first time.
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