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Isoprenoids are a large family of natural products with diverse structures, which allow them to play diverse and important roles in the physiology of plants and animals. They also have important commercial uses as pharmaceuticals, flavoring agents, fragrances, and nutritional supplements. Recently, metabolic engineering has been intensively investigated and emerged as the technology of choice for the production of isoprenoids through microbial fermentation. Isoprenoid biosynthesis typically originates in plants from acetyl-coA in central carbon metabolism, however, a recent study reported an alternative pathway, the isopentenol utilization pathway (IUP), that can provide the building blocks of isoprenoid biosynthesis from affordable C5 substrates. In this study, we expressed the IUP in Escherichia coli to efficiently convert isopentenols into geranate, a valuable isoprenoid compound. We first established a geraniol-producing strain in E. coli that uses the IUP. Then, we extended the geraniol synthesis pathway to produce geranate through two oxidation reactions catalyzed by two alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenases from Castellaniella defragrans. The geranate titer was further increased by optimizing the expression of the two dehydrogenases and also parameters of the fermentation process. The best strain produced 764 mg/L geranate in 24 h from 2 g/L isopentenols (a mixture of isoprenol and prenol). We also investigated if the dehydrogenases could accept other isoprenoid alcohols as substrates., (© 2022 The Authors. Biotechnology and Bioengineering published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Objective: Ferroptosis is a novel mode of non-apoptotic cell death induced by build-up of toxic lipid peroxides (lipid-ROS) in an iron dependent manner, which is a key event in ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced cardiomyocytes damages. Studies indicated that ischemic preconditioning with cardiac microvascular endothelial cells (CMECs) protected against I/R-induced cardiomyocytes damages. However, the role of hypoxia-conditioned CMECs-derived Exo (H-exo) in I/R cardiomyocytes damages remains largely unclear. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the role and underlying mechanisms of H-exo in hypoxia/reoxygenation(H/R)-induced H9C2 cells damages., Methods: The rat CMECs were subjected to hypoxia or normoxia culture and Exo was subsequently collected and identified. H-exo or normoxia-conditioned CMECs-derived Exo (N-exo) were administered to H9C2 cells with H/R. To evaluate the therapeutic effect of H-exo and H-exo on H/R-induced H9C2 cells damages, cell proliferation was detected by CCK-8 assay and Edu staining, and ferroptosis process were evaluated by iron ion concentration, lipid reactive oxygen species (ROS) level, malondialdehyde (MDA) level, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) level, and the protein expression of ferroptosis markers. Mechanically, we utilized the RT-qPCR to identify the expression of candidate miR-210-3p in N-exo and H-exo. Bioinformatics combined with dual luciferase reporter assay disclosed the downstream molecular mechanism of miR-210-3p., Results: The results indicated that both H-exo and N-exo significantly facilitated cell proliferation, increased GSH-Px levels and ferroptosis marker (GPX4) protein levels, and reduced iron ion concentration, lipid ROS level, MDA levels and ferroptosis markers (ACSL4 and PTGS2) protein levels in H/R-treated H9C2 cells. More importantly, the therapeutic effect of H-exo was significantly better than that of N-exo. Mechanistically, the results of RT-qPCR revealed significant enrichment of miR-210-3p in H-exo compared with N-exo. The miR-210-3p delivered by H-exo inhibited TFR expression by directly interacting with TFR mRNA, resulting in the promotion of cell proliferation and the attenuation of cell ferroptosis in H/R-treated H9C2 cells., Conclusion: All these data demonstrated that H-exo derived miR-210-3p facilitated the proliferation of myocardial cells in H/R-treated H9C2 cells by suppressing TFR-mediated ferroptosis, which provided new methods to treat H/R-induced myocardial injury., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no competing interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Nervonic acid (NA) is a monounsaturated very long-chain fatty acid (VLCFA) and has been identified with critical biological functions in medical and health care for brain development and injury repair. Yet, the approaches to producing NA from the sources of plants or animals continue to pose challenges to meet increasing market demand, as they are generally associated with high costs, a lack of natural resources, a long life cycle, and low production efficiency. The recent technological advance in metabolic engineering allows us to precisely engineer oleaginous microbes to develop high-content NA-producing strains, which has the potential to provide a possible solution to produce NA on a commercial fermentation scale. In this Review, the biosynthetic pathway, natural sources, and metabolic engineering of NA are summarized. The strategies of metabolic engineering that could be adopted to modify oleaginous yeast to produce NA are discussed in detail, providing the prospecting views for the microbial cells producing NA.

Biological systems mainly utilize chemical energy to fuel autonomous molecular motors, enabling the system to be driven out of equilibrium 1 . Taking inspiration from rotary motors such as the bacterial flagellar motor 2 and adenosine triphosphate synthase 3 , and building on the success of light-powered unidirectional rotary molecular motors 4-6 , scientists have pursued the design of synthetic molecular motors solely driven by chemical energy 7-13 . However, designing artificial rotary molecular motors operating autonomously using a chemical fuel and simultaneously featuring the intrinsic structural design elements to allow full 360° unidirectional rotary motion like adenosine triphosphate synthase remains challenging. Here we show that a homochiral biaryl Motor-3, with three distinct stereochemical elements, is a rotary motor that undergoes repetitive and unidirectional 360° rotation of the two aryl groups around a single-bond axle driven by a chemical fuel. It undergoes sequential ester cyclization, helix inversion and ring opening, and up to 99% unidirectionality is realized over the autonomous rotary cycle. The molecular rotary motor can be operated in two modes: synchronized motion with pulses of a chemical fuel and acid-base oscillations; and autonomous motion in the presence of a chemical fuel under slightly basic aqueous conditions. This rotary motor design with intrinsic control over the direction of rotation, simple chemical fuelling for autonomous motion and near-perfect unidirectionality illustrates the potential for future generations of multicomponent machines to perform mechanical functions., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)

Chemokine C-C motif chemokine ligand 3 (CCL3) plays an important role in the invasion and metastasis of malignant tumors. For developing new therapeutic targets and antitumor drugs, the effect of chemokine CCL3 and the related cytokine network on colorectal cancer should be investigated. This study used cell, tissue, and animal experiments to prove that CCL3 is highly expressed in colorectal cancer and confirmed that CCL3 can promote the proliferation of cancer cells, and its expression is closely related to TRAF6/NF- κ B molecular pathway. In addition, protein chip technology was used to examine colorectal cancer tissue samples and identify the key factors of chemokine CCL3 and the toll-like receptors/nuclear factor- κ B (TLR/NF- κ B) pathway in cancer and metastatic lymph nodes. Furthermore, the lentiviral vector technology was employed for transfection to construct interference and overexpression cell lines. The experimental results reveal the mechanism of CCL3 and TNF receptor-associated factor 6 (TRAF6)/NF- κ B pathway-related factors and their effects on the proliferation of colon cancer cells. Finally, the expression and significance of CCL3 in colorectal cancer tissues and its correlation with clinical pathology were studied by immunohistochemistry. Also, the results confirmed that CCL3 and C-C motif chemokine receptor 5 (CCR5) were expressed in adjacent tissues, colorectal cancer tissues, and metastatic cancer. The expression level was correlated with the clinical stage and nerve invasion. The expression of chemokine CCL3 and receptor CCR5 was positively correlated with the expression of TRAF6 and NF- κ B and could promote the proliferation, invasion, and migration of colorectal cancer cells through TRAF6 and NF- κ B., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Xiaoqiang Ma et al.)

The debate on technological innovation shocks and its effect on the environment are of great interest to academicians and environmentalists worldwide. At present, primary focus of this research is to investigate the asymmetric technology shocks and its impact on CO 2 emissions for BRICS economies. The linear and non-linear panel ARDL models are applied to compute both short-run and long-run dynamics of technology shocks and CO 2 emissions. Asymmetric estimates confer that a positive shock in patents reduces the CO 2 emissions by 0.418%, whereas negative shock increases the CO 2 emissions by 0.854%. Contrariwise, the trademark positive shock increases the carbon emissions by 0.416% and vice versa. The non-linear analysis provides an opportunity to measure the direction and magnitude of positive and negative shocks in technology on the environmental quality of BRICS economies. Hence, policymakers and environmentalists should devise their strategies by keeping in mind the impacts of positive and negative shocks., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Engineering microbes to produce value-added chemicals from C6/C5 sugars sometimes requires long biosynthetic pathways, which causes carbon loss due to involving multiple metabolic branch nodes, leading to a lower product yield. Using C2 feedstocks derived from gaseous, cellulosic, and plastic wastes could establish shorter biosynthetic pathways to produce some target chemicals, for example, acetyl-CoA-derived natural products. Utilizing these waste-derived feedstocks would also contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of the chemical industry. In this review, we highlighted the promising waste-processing technologies that could provide C2 feedstocks that are compatible with microbial fermentation. We also analyzed the recent metabolic engineering works in which the microorganisms/fermentation processes were modified/optimized to utilize acetate, ethanol, or ethylene glycol more efficiently., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Monoterpenoids are C10 isoprenoids and constitute a large family of natural products. They have been used as ingredients in food, cosmetics, and therapeutic products. Many monoterpenoids such as linalool, geraniol, limonene, and pinene are volatile and can be found in plant essential oils. Conventionally, these bioactive compounds are obtained from plant extracts by using organic solvents or by distillation method, which are costly and laborious if high-purity product is desired. In recent years, microbial biosynthesis has emerged as alternative source of monoterpenoids with great promise for meeting the increasing global demand for these compounds. However, current methods of production are not yet at levels required for commercialization. Production efficiency of monoterpenoids in microbial hosts is often restricted by high volatility of the monoterpenoids, a lack of enzymatic activity and selectivity, and/or product cytotoxicity to the microbial hosts. In this review, we summarize advances in microbial production of monoterpenoids over the past 3 years with particular focus on the key metabolic engineering strategies for different monoterpenoid products. We also provide our perspective on the promise of future endeavors to improve monoterpenoid productivity., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.)

Strigolactones (SLs) are a class of phytohormones playing diverse roles in plant growth and development, yet the limited access to SLs is largely impeding SL-based foundational investigations and applications. Here, we developed Escherichia coli – Saccharomyces cerevisiae consortia to establish a microbial biosynthetic platform for the synthesis of various SLs, including carlactone, carlactonoic acid, 5-deoxystrigol (5DS; 6.65 ± 1.71 μg/liter), 4-deoxyorobanchol (3.46 ± 0.28 μg/liter), and orobanchol (OB; 19.36 ± 5.20 μg/liter). The SL-producing platform enabled us to conduct functional identification of CYP722Cs from various plants as either OB or 5DS synthase. It also allowed us to quantitatively compare known variants of plant SL biosynthetic enzymes in the microbial system. The titer of 5DS was further enhanced through pathway engineering to 47.3 μg/liter. This work provides a unique platform for investigating SL biosynthesis and evolution and lays the foundation for developing SL microbial production process.

Engineering microbes to utilize non-conventional substrates could create short and efficient pathways to convert substrate into product. In this study, we designed and constructed a two-step heterologous ethanol utilization pathway (EUP) in Escherichia coli by using acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (encoded by ada) from Dickeya zeae and alcohol dehydrogenase (encoded by adh2) from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This EUP can convert ethanol into acetyl-CoA without ATP consumption, and generate two molecules of NADH per molecule of ethanol. We optimized the expression of these two genes and found that ethanol consumption could be improved by expressing them in a specific order (ada-adh2) with a constitutive promoter (PgyrA). The engineered E. coli strain with EUP consumed approximately 8 g/L of ethanol in 96 h when it was used as sole carbon source. Subsequently, we combined EUP with the biosynthesis of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a biodegradable polymer derived from acetyl-CoA. The engineered E. coli strain carrying EUP and PHB biosynthetic pathway produced 1.1 g/L of PHB from 10 g/L of ethanol and 1 g/L of aspartate family amino acids in 96 h. We also engineered a E. coli strain to produce 24 mg/L of prenol in an ethanol-containing medium, supporting the feasibility of converting ethanol into different classes of acetyl-CoA derived compounds., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs) play key roles in the production of various chemical precursors that are essential in pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries. To achieve a practical application of ADHs in industrial processes, tailoring enzyme properties through rational design or directed evolution is often required. Here, we developed a secretion-based dual fluorescence assay (SDFA) for high-throughput screening of ADHs. In SDFA, an ADH of interest is fused to a mutated superfolder green fluorescent protein (MsfGFP), which could result in the secretion of the fusion protein to culture broth. After a simple centrifugation step to remove the cells, the supernatant can be directly used to measure the activity of ADH based on a red fluorescence signal, whose increase is coupled to the formation of NADH (a redox cofactor of ADHs) in the reaction. SDFA allows easy quantification of ADH concentration based on the green fluorescence signal of MsfGFP. This feature is useful in determining specific activity and may improve screening accuracy. Out of five ADHs we have tested with SDFA, four ADHs can be secreted and characterized. We successfully screened a combinatorial library of an ADH from Pichia finlandica and identified a variant with a 197-fold higher k cat /k m value toward (S)-2-octanol compared to its wild type., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Chitin is the most abundant renewable nitrogenous material on earth and is accessible to humans in the form of crustacean shell waste. Such waste has been severely underutilized, resulting in both resource wastage and disposal issues. Upcycling chitin-containing waste into value-added products is an attractive solution. However, the direct conversion of crustacean shell waste-derived chitin into a wide spectrum of nitrogen-containing chemicals (NCCs) is challenging via conventional catalytic processes. To address this challenge, in this study, we developed an integrated biorefinery process to upgrade shell waste-derived chitin into two aromatic NCCs that currently cannot be synthesized from chitin via any chemical process (tyrosine and l-DOPA). The process involves a pretreatment of chitin-containing shell waste and an enzymatic/fermentative bioprocess using metabolically engineered Escherichia coli The pretreatment step achieved an almost 100% recovery and partial depolymerization of chitin from shrimp shell waste (SSW), thereby offering water-soluble chitin hydrolysates for the downstream microbial process under mild conditions. The engineered E. coli strains produced 0.91 g/L tyrosine or 0.41 g/L l-DOPA from 22.5 g/L unpurified SSW-derived chitin hydrolysates, demonstrating the feasibility of upcycling renewable chitin-containing waste into value-added NCCs via this integrated biorefinery, which bypassed the Haber-Bosch process in providing a nitrogen source., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interest.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of prebiotics (containing fructooligosaccharides, xylooligosaccharides, polydextrose, and resistant dextrin) intake on immune function and intestinal microbiota structure in perioperative patients with colorectal cancer (CRC)., Methods: A randomized, double-blind, no-treatment parallel control clinical trial involving 140 perioperative patients (90 men and 50 women, aged 40-75 y) with CRC was performed. Patients were randomly divided into two groups: an intervention group (prebiotic group, n = 70) that received prebiotic supplementation of 30 g/d for 7 d, and a control group (non-prebiotic group, n = 70) that received no prebiotic supplementation. The nutritional and immunologic indices were evaluated for both groups before and after operation and analyzed against baseline values. Moreover, fecal samples were collected from 40 patients randomly chosen from the two groups to study intestinal microbiota, which was analyzed by sequencing the V3-V4 region of 16S ribosomal DNA using the Illumina (San Diego, CA) MiSeq (PE 2 × 300 bp) platform., Results: Oral intake of prebiotics produced significant effects on immunologic indices in both the preoperative and postoperative periods, but the patterns of effects were different. In the preoperative period, prebiotics increased serum levels of immunoglobulin G (IgG; P = 0.02), IgM (P = 0.00), and transferrin (P = 0.027; all P < 0.05). In the postoperative period, enhanced levels of IgG (P = 0.003), IgA (P = 0.007), suppressor/cytotoxic T cells (CD3 + CD8 + ; P = 0.043), and total B lymphocytes (CD19 + ; P = 0.012) were identified in the prebiotic group (all P < 0.05). The differences in the intestinal microbiota at the phylum level were not statistically significant between the intervention and control groups (P > 0.05). At the genus level, prebiotics increased the abundance of Bifidobacterium (P = 0.017) and Enterococcus (P = 0.02; both P < 0.05) but decreased the abundance of Bacteroides (P = 0.04) in the preoperative period (all P < 0.05). In the postoperative period, the abundance of Bacteroides (P = 0.04) was decreased, but the abundance of Enterococcus (P = 0.00), Bacillus (P = 0.01), Lactococcus (P = 0.00), and Streptococcus (P = 0.037) increased in the non-prebiotic group (all P < 0.05); however, no significant change was identified in the abundance of Enterococcus (P = 0.56), Lactococcus (P = 0.07), and Streptococcus (P = 0.56) as a result of prebiotic intervention in this period (all P > 0.05). The abundance of Escherichia-Shigella was increased after prebiotic intake in the postoperative period (P = 0.014, P < 0.05). There was a notable trend of decline in the abundance of intestinal microbiota from preoperative to postoperative in the non-prebiotic group., Conclusions: Prebiotic intake is recommended to improve serum immunologic indicators in patients with CRC 7 d before operation. Prebiotics improved the abundance of four commensal microbiota containing opportunistic pathogens in patients with CRC. Surgical stress decreased the abundance of most intestinal microbiota in the intestinal tract but increased the abundance of some opportunistic pathogens and commensal microbiota. Bacteroides is a relevant bacterial species for further research on the mechanism of prebiotics., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Bi 1- x - y La x Pr y FeO 3 ( x = 0 and 0.05; y = 0, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20) (BLPFO) powders were prepared using a hydrothermal method. The lattice structure of the samples was characterized by X-ray diffraction, which revealed an increase in the lattice constant of the doped samples evidencing the substitution of Bi by La and Pr ions. Raman spectroscopy was used to further analyse the structural distortion in the samples. Scanning electron microscopy was used to characterize the morphology of the samples. The atomic concentrations (%) of La and Pr elements in the samples were detected by Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The ferromagnetism of the samples increased with the increase in La and Pr co-doping concentration as observed by vibrating sample magnetometry at room temperature. The evidence of reverse distortion of FeO 6 octahedral structure in the La and Pr co-doped samples was revealed by the Mössbauer spectra parameters: Is, Qs, H , Γ , χ 2 and area ratio ( A 1 / A 2 ) of two sextets., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts to declare., (This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry.)

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the predominant and most fatal type of brain tumor in adults. The prognosis of GBM remains poor despite advances in surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It is common that patients with GBM exhibit innate or acquired resistance to temozolomide (TMZ), a standard chemotherapeutic agent for GBM, and a previous report demonstrated that miRNA‑233 (miR‑223) promotes the growth and invasion of GBM cells by targeting tumor suppressor paired box 6 (PAX6). The present study explored the effect of TMZ on miR‑223/PAX6 signaling in addition to the effect of miR‑223/PAX6 signaling on TMZ chemoresistance in human GBM cells. Luciferase reporter assays confirmed that miR‑223 directly targets PAX6 through binding to its 3'‑untranslated region. TMZ reduced the expression level of miR‑223 in a concentration‑dependent manner in U251 and U118 GBM cells, which led to increased expression of PAX6. miR‑223 and/or PAX6 were overexpressed and knocked down in U251 and U118 cells, and the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of TMZ and cell proliferation under TMZ treatment were used as measures of TMZ chemoresistance. The results demonstrated that overexpression of miR-223 in GBM cells markedly decreased TMZ-induced inhibition of cell proliferation and increased TMZ IC50, which could be abolished by overexpression of PAX6. On the other hand, knocking down miR‑223 in GBM cells with antagomir significantly enhanced the inhibitory effect of TMZ on GBM cell proliferation and decreased the TMZ IC50, which could be abolished by knockdown of PAX6. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that TMZ inhibits GBM cell proliferation by inhibiting the expression of miR‑223, which leads to increased expression of tumor suppressor PAX6. Overexpression of miR‑223 increases TMZ chemoresistance, while inhibition of miR‑223 with antagomir markedly decreases TMZ chemoresistance in GBM cells. The present study provided novel insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying the pharmacological effects, in addition to the chemoresistance, of TMZ for GBM.

To avoid isolation and purification of the intermediate 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA), a two-enzyme two-step cascade synthesis of ampicillin from penicillin G was established. In purely aqueous medium, penicillin G hydrolysis and ampicillin synthesis were catalyzed by immobilized wild-type and mutagenized penicillin G acylases from Alcaligenes faecalis (Af PGA), respectively (Fig. 1). The βF24 G mutant Af PGA (the 24th Phenylalanine of the β-subunit was replaced by Glycine) was employed for its superior performance in enzymatic synthesis of ampicillin. By optimizing the reaction conditions, including enzyme loading, temperature, initial pH and D-PGME/6-APA ratio, the conversion of the second step of ampicillin synthesis reached approximately 90% in 240 min and less than 1.7 mole D-PGME were required to produce 1 mole ampicillin. Overall, in a 285 min continuous two-step procedure, an ampicillin yield of 87% was achieved, demonstrating the possibility of improving the cascade synthesis of ampicillin by mutagenized PGA, providing an economically efficient and environmentally benign procedure for semi-synthetic penicillins antibiotics synthesis., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

We examined the expression of minichromosome maintenance 2 (MCM2) in gastric cancer and adjacent normal tissues and estimated the possible value of MCM2 as a novel prognostic marker. Using real-time PCR, western blotting and immunohistochemistry, we examined the expression of MCM2 in gastric carcinoma and paired normal gastric mucosa. Statistical analysis of the expression of MCM2 mRNA and protein in gastric cancer and normal tissues was performed to evaluate the relationship between MCM2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics in gastric cancer. The expression of MCM2 mRNA and protein in gastric carcinomas was significantly higher compared to that in normal gastric mucosa (P=0.04). Immunohistochemistry analysis showed that MCM2 expression was significantly up-regulated in tumor and metastastic lymph node tissues compared with the corresponding non-cancerous mucosa (P<0.05). Positive expression of MCM2 was significantly associated with patient age, T category and the presence of lymph node metastasis (P<0.05). There were no differences between MCM2 expression and gender, tumor size, tumor location, M category, International Union Against Cancer (UICC) stage, vessel invasion and tumor differentiation. Patients with negative tumor MCM2 expression displayed a better survival time than those with positive MCM2 expression (P<0.05). Survival analysis showed that positive MCM2 expression (P<0.05), T stage (P<0.05) and N stage (P<0.05) were independent prognostic factors for disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Our data suggest that MCM2 could serve as a novel prognostic biomarker in gastric carcinoma.

Turmeric is an excellent example of a plant that produces large numbers of metabolites from diverse metabolic pathways or networks. It is hypothesized that these metabolic pathways or networks contain biosynthetic modules, which lead to the formation of metabolite modules-groups of metabolites whose production is co-regulated and biosynthetically linked. To test whether such co-regulated metabolite modules do exist in this plant, metabolic profiling analysis was performed on turmeric rhizome samples that were collected from 16 different growth and development treatments, which had significant impacts on the levels of 249 volatile and non-volatile metabolites that were detected. Importantly, one of the many co-regulated metabolite modules that were indeed readily detected in this analysis contained the three major curcuminoids, whereas many other structurally related diarylheptanoids belonged to separate metabolite modules, as did groups of terpenoids. The existence of these co-regulated metabolite modules supported the hypothesis that the 3-methoxyl groups on the aromatic rings of the curcuminoids are formed before the formation of the heptanoid backbone during the biosynthesis of curcumin and also suggested the involvement of multiple polyketide synthases with different substrate selectivities in the formation of the array of diarylheptanoids detected in turmeric. Similar conclusions about terpenoid biosynthesis could also be made. Thus, discovery and analysis of metabolite modules can be a powerful predictive tool in efforts to understand metabolism in plants.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) was considered only a culinary spice in many parts of the world until the notable anti-inflammation curcuminoids were discovered from this herb. Because it is a sterile triploid and is propagated vegetatively by rhizome division, turmeric is susceptible to pathogens that accumulate and are transmitted from generation to generation, and amplification of particularly useful stocks is a slow process. An in vitro propagation method has been developed to alleviate these problems. Metabolic profiling, using GC-MS and LC-ESI-MS, was used to determine if chemical differences existed between greenhouse-grown and in vitro micropropagation derived plants. The major chemical constituent curcuminoids, a group of diarylheptanoid compounds, as well as major mono- and sesquiterpenoids were identified and quantified. Principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis revealed chemical differences between lines (T3C turmeric vs Hawaiian red turmeric) and tissues (rhizome, root, leaf, and shoot). However, this analysis indicated that no significant differences existed between growth treatments (conventional greenhouse-grown vs in vitro propagation derived plants).