Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Dec 20;22(1):7.
doi: 10.3390/md22010007.

Identification of Potential Factors for the Promotion of Fucoxanthin Synthesis by Methyl Jasmonic Acid Treatment of Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Hao Liu  1   2   3   4 , Yawen Chen  1 , Heyu Wang  2 , Yaxuan Huang  4 , Ying Hu  4 , Yuxiang Zhao  3   4 , Yifu Gong  1
Affiliations

Identification of Potential Factors for the Promotion of Fucoxanthin Synthesis by Methyl Jasmonic Acid Treatment of Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Hao Liu et al. Mar Drugs. .

Abstract

Fucoxanthin, a vital secondary metabolite produced by marine diatoms, has great economic value and research potential. However, its popularization and application have been greatly restricted due to its low content, difficult extraction, and high production cost. Methyl jasmonic acid (MeJA) exerts similar inductive hormones in the growth and development as well as metabolic processes of plants. In Phaeodactylum tricornutum (P. tricornutum), MeJA treatment can increase fucoxanthin content. In this study, the effects of different concentrations of MeJA on the cell growth and the fucoxanthin content of P. tricornutum were explored. Meanwhile, this study used high-throughput sequencing technology for transcriptome sequencing of P. tricornutum and subsequently performed differential gene expression analysis, gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis, and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) for screening the hub genes for the promotion of fucoxanthin synthesis with MeJA-treated P. tricornutum. On this basis, the functions of the hub genes for the promotion of fucoxanthin synthesis with MeJA-treated P. tricornutum were further analyzed. The results revealed that the carotenoid synthesis-related genes PHATRDRAFT_54800 and PHATRDRAFT_20677 were the hub genes for the promotion of fucoxanthin synthesis with MeJA-treated P. tricornutum. PHATRDRAFT_54800 may be a carotenoid isomerase, while PHATRDRAFT_20677 may be involved in the MeJA-stimulated synthesis of fucoxanthin by exerting the role of SDR family NAD(P)-dependent oxidoreductases.

Keywords: PHATRDRAFT_20677; PHATRDRAFT_54800; Phaeodactylum tricornutum; carotenoid synthesis pathway; fucoxanthin; methyl jasmonic acid.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Hao Liu, Yaxuan Huang, Ying Hu, and Yuxiang Zhao are employed by Biotrans Technology, and the other authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest. Biotrans Technology has no role in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article or the decision to submit it for publication.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effect of MeJA on the cell growth and the fucoxanthin content of P. tricornutum. (A) Cell growth curves of P. tricornutum in the control group and the MeJA group with different concentrations; (B) HPLC plots of the fucoxanthin standard group, the control group, and the 200 μmol/L MeJA group; (C) Fucoxanthin content in per gram of dry weight algae cells of P. tricornutum after treatment with different concentrations of MeJA.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Differential gene expression analysis. (A) Volcano plots of expression profiles of the control and the MeJA groups. (B) Bubble chart of the GO-BP enrichment analysis of DEGs in the control and the MeJA groups. (C) Bubble chart of GO-CC enrichment analysis of DEGs in the control and the MeJA groups. (D) Bubble chart of GO-MF enrichment analysis of DEGs in the control and the MeJA groups. (E) Bubble chart of KEGG enrichment analysis of DEGs in the control and the MeJA groups. (F) Bubble chart of KEGG enrichment analysis of DEGs in the fucoxanthin synthesis-related pathway in the control and MeJA groups.
Figure 3
Figure 3
WGCNA. (A) Correlation plots between soft thresholds and scale-free networks through the construction of the WGCNA network. (B) Eigengene adjacency heatmap. (C) Cluster dendrogram of DEGs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relationship between gene modules and phenotypes. (A) Correlation heatmap between individual modules and phenotypes. (B) Correlation plot between phenotypes and light-green module hub genes. (C) Venn diagrams.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Molecular evolutionary tree of carotenoid synthesis-related genes in P. tricornutum.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kwon D.Y., Vuong T.T., Choi J., Lee T.S., Um J.-I., Koo S.Y., Hwang K.T., Kim S.M. Fucoxanthin biosynthesis has a positive correlation with the specific growth rate in the culture of microalga Phaeodactylum tricornutum. J. Appl. Phycol. 2021;33:1473–1485. doi: 10.1007/s10811-021-02376-5. - DOI
    1. McClure D.D., Luiz A., Gerber B., Barton G.W., Kavanagh J.M. An investigation into the effect of culture conditions on fucoxanthin production using the marine microalgae Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Algal. Res. 2018;29:41–48. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2017.11.015. - DOI
    1. Neumann U., Derwenskus F., Flaiz Flister V., Schmid-Staiger U., Hirth T., Bischoff S.C. Fucoxanthin, A Carotenoid Derived from Phaeodactylum tricornutum Exerts Antiproliferative and Antioxidant Activities In Vitro. Antioxidants. 2019;8:183. doi: 10.3390/antiox8060183. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bauer C., Schmitz C., Corrêa R., Herrera C., Ramlov F., Oliveira E., Pizzato A., Varela L., Cabral D., Yunes R. In vitro fucoxanthin production by the Phaeodactylum tricornutum diatom. Stud. Nat. Prod. Chem. 2019;63:211–242.
    1. Sun J., Zhou C., Cheng P., Zhu J., Hou Y., Li Y., Zhang J., Yan X. A simple and efficient strategy for fucoxanthin extraction from the microalga Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Algal. Res. 2022;61:102610. doi: 10.1016/j.algal.2021.102610. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources