title: Cloning and Functional Analysis of Three Chalcone Synthases from the Flowers of Safflowers Carthamus tinctorius.
abstract: The flowers of safflowers (Carthamus tinctorius L.) are very important as they are the sole source of their distinct pigments, i.e. carthamus-red and -yellows, and have historically had strong connections to the cultural side of human activities such as natural dyes, rouge, and traditional medicines. The distinct pigments are quinochalcone C-glucosides, which are found specifically in the flowers of C. tinctorius. To investigate the biosynthetic pathways of quinochalcone C-glucosides, de novo assembly of the transcriptome was performed on the flowers using an Illumina sequencing platform to obtain 69,312 annotated coding DNA sequences. Three chalcone synthase like genes, CtCHS1, 2 and 3 were focused on and cloned, which might be involved in quinochalcone C-glucosides biosynthesis by establishing the C6-C3-C6 chalcone skeleton. It was demonstrated that all the recombinant CtCHSs could recognize p-coumaroyl-CoA, caffeoyl-CoA, feruloyl-CoA, and sinapoyl-CoA as starter substrates. This is the first report on the cloning and functional analysis of the three chalcone synthase genes from the flowers of C. tinctorius.
authors.forename: Junichi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shinozaki
authors.forename: Hiromichi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kenmoku
authors.forename: Kenichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nihei
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Masuda
authors.forename: Masaaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noji
authors.forename: Katsuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Konno
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Asakawa
authors.forename: Kohei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kazuma
mesh_terms: D000217:Acyltransferases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D031187:Carthamus tinctorius / Q000737:chemistry / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D035264:Flowers / Q000737:chemistry / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005960:Glucosides / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment
chemical_list: D005960:Glucosides; D010940:Plant Proteins; D000217:Acyltransferases; C020141:flavanone synthetase