An omics-based approach to unravel alkaloid and leaf biology in the anticancer plant Catharanthus roseus

Catharanthus roseus is the only producer of the dimeric alkaloids vinblastine and vincristine, which are highly valuable in the treatment of several types of cancers. Although the pathway leading to the biosynthesis of these natural products is almost completely elucidated, key bottleneck enzymatic steps are still unknown, only a few transmembrane transport events have been uncovered and the complex network of transcription factors is not yet fully understood.

In the work presented, a short and long read hybrid reference transcriptome was generated for C. roseus, and was then used to characterize the differential transcriptome of the alkaloid accumulating idioblast leaf cells and of leaves with induced levels of vinblastine and vincristine. Data analysis enabled the identification of strong candidate genes for key steps of C. roseus alkaloid metabolism, which will be considered in future characterization studies.

Rogério Ribeiro holds a MsC degree in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology from Faculty of Sciences of University of Porto (FCUP). Currently he is working on the hybrid transcriptome of the medicinal plant Catharanthus roseus under the supervision of Mariana Sottomayor (FCUP and CIBIO-InBIO) and Nuno Fonseca (CIBIO-InBIO).

 

[Hosts: Mariana Sottomayor (Plant Biology) and Nuno A. Fonseca (Applied Ecology; Computational Biology and Metagenomics)]