Asclepias curassavica Raw sequence reads
Cancer is a group of diseases affecting people worldwide, and despite scientific and technological efforts, currently, there is not a completely effective treatment. In that sense, medicinal plants offer an enormous variety of natural compounds with significant therapeutic potential. Specifically, Asclepias curassavica is a medicinal plant with different traditional uses including anticancer activity supported by scientific evidence. Its beneficial effects are principally attributed to its phytochemicals. Therefore, this research aimed to perform a transcriptomic analysis of A. curassavica to identify the genes that encode the enzymes related to the synthesis of metabolites with previously reported anticancer properties. To accomplish the objective, transcriptome sequencing was performed in the Illumina Next Seq 550 platform, followed by de novo assembly of the transcriptome and functional annotation of gene ontology. Also, an analysis was done to identify the transcripts of enzymes that synthesize secondary metabolites with potential anticancer activity. Then, to validate the sequencing qRT-PCR experiments were conducted. This research study identified for the first time from the A. curassavica transcriptome at least 19 enzymes that are directly involved in the synthesis of secondary metabolites such as phenolic compounds, flavonoids and terpenoids with potential anticancer activity. It was found that the annotated genes with the highest expression were pinoresinol reductase, aromatic desulfoglucosinolate sulfotransferase, and quinate O-hydroxycinnamoyltransferase, which was consistent with the number of annotations and the calculated gene counts. After conducted qRT-PCR the genes with the highest expression were pinoresinol reductase, aromatic desulfoglucosinolate sulfotransferase, and quinate O-hydroxycinnamoyltransferase Finally, these findings consolidate the first steps to further exploration of A. curassavica's potential for cancer therapeutics.