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. 2013;8(2):e56217.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056217. Epub 2013 Feb 28.

De Novo transcriptome assembly (NGS) of Curcuma longa L. rhizome reveals novel transcripts related to anticancer and antimalarial terpenoids

Ramasamy S Annadurai  1 , Ramprasad Neethiraj, Vasanthan Jayakumar, Anand C Damodaran, Sudha Narayana Rao, Mohan A V S K Katta, Sreeja Gopinathan, Santosh Prasad Sarma, Vanitha Senthilkumar, Vidya Niranjan, Ashok Gopinath, Raja C Mugasimangalam
Affiliations

De Novo transcriptome assembly (NGS) of Curcuma longa L. rhizome reveals novel transcripts related to anticancer and antimalarial terpenoids

Ramasamy S Annadurai et al. PLoS One. 2013.

Abstract

Herbal remedies are increasingly being recognised in recent years as alternative medicine for a number of diseases including cancer. Curcuma longa L., commonly known as turmeric is used as a culinary spice in India and in many Asian countries has been attributed to lower incidences of gastrointestinal cancers. Curcumin, a secondary metabolite isolated from the rhizomes of this plant has been shown to have significant anticancer properties, in addition to antimalarial and antioxidant effects. We sequenced the transcriptome of the rhizome of the 3 varieties of Curcuma longa L. using Illumina reversible dye terminator sequencing followed by de novo transcriptome assembly. Multiple databases were used to obtain a comprehensive annotation and the transcripts were functionally classified using GO, KOG and PlantCyc. Special emphasis was given for annotating the secondary metabolite pathways and terpenoid biosynthesis pathways. We report for the first time, the presence of transcripts related to biosynthetic pathways of several anti-cancer compounds like taxol, curcumin, and vinblastine in addition to anti-malarial compounds like artemisinin and acridone alkaloids, emphasizing turmeric's importance as a highly potent phytochemical. Our data not only provides molecular signatures for several terpenoids but also a comprehensive molecular resource for facilitating deeper insights into the transcriptome of C. longa.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The following authors have affiliations to Genotypic Technology Private Limited, the commercial funders of this research, and confirm that this affiliation does not in anyway alter the authors adherence of all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. 1. Ramasamy S Annadurai 2. Ramprasad Neethiraj 3. Vasanthan Jayakumar 4. Anand C Damodaran 5. Sudha Narayana Rao 6. Mohan AVSK Katta 7. Sreeja Gopinathan 8. Santosh Prasad Sarma 9. Vanitha Senthilkumar 10. Vidya Niranjan 11. Ashok Gopinath 12. Raja C Mugasimangalam The authors Ramasamy S Annadurai and Ashok Gopinath were working at Genotypic Technology Pvt Ltd when they carried out their work. Dr. Ramasamy S Annadurai and Dr. Ashok Gopinath's affiliations to ITC Limited and Sanofi Synthelabo India Limited respectively does not affect the project in any way. These companies were neither funders nor sponsors for this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Transcript assembly statistics.
A) Length of the assembled transcripts vs. Number of transcripts B) ATGC composition of the RTs.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Coverage distribution of NCBI C. longa ESTs matched against representative transcripts using BLAST.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Top ten most represented GO terms in each of the three GO domains.
Figure 4
Figure 4. KOG Classification.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Top ten most expressed Pfam domains.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Expression profile of the differentially expressed transcripts (A) in cultivar B with respect to A (B) in cultivar C with respect to A.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Terpenoid pathways represented in the PlantCyc annotation of the representative transcripts.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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