Artemisinin Biosynthesis Enhancement in Transgenic Artemisia annua Plants by Downregulation of the β-Caryophyllene Synthase Gene
Abstract
Artemisinin is an effective antimalarial drug isolated from the medicinal plant Artemisia annua L. Due to its increasing market demand and the low yield in A. annua, there is a great interest in increasing its production. In this paper, in an attempt to increase artemisinin content of A. ANNUA by suppressing the expression of β-caryophyllene synthase, a sesquiterpene synthase competing as a precursor of artemisinin, the antisense fragment (750 bp) of β-caryophyllene synthase cDNA was inserted into the plant expression vector pBI121 and introduced into A. annua by Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. PCR and Southern hybridization confirmed the stable integration of multiple copies of the transgene in 5 different transgenic lines of A. annua. Reverse transcription PCR showed that the expression of endogenous CPS in the transgenic lines was significantly lower than that in the wild-type control A. annua plants, and β-caryophyllene content decreased sharply in the transgenic lines in comparison to the control. The artemisinin content of one of the transgenic lines showed an increase of 54.9 % compared with the wild-type control. The present study demonstrated that the inhibition pathway in the precursor competition for artemisinin biosynthesis by anti-sense technology is an effective means of increasing the artemisinin content of A. annua plants.
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Down-regulation of CPS gene activity by introduction of an antisense fragment of CPS cDNA into A. annua resulted in a nearly 55% increase in artemisinin and decreased β-caryophyllene content.
“Down-regulation of the CPS gene activity by introduction of an antisense fragment of CPS cDNA into A. annua resulted in a nearly 55% increase in artemisinin and decreased β-caryophyllene content (Chen et al. 2011).”
From Enhancing artemisinin content in and delivery from Artemisia annua: a review of alternative, classical, and transgenic approaches (2021) · cites this paper as Chen et al. 2011
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- Authors
- Chen, J.-L., Fang, H.-M., Ji, Y.-P., Pu, G.-B., Guo, Y.-W., Huang, L.-L., Du, Z.-G., Liu, B.-Y., Ye, H.-C., Li, G.-F., & Wang, H.
- Affiliations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- ORCID
- Wang, Hong
- Venue
- Planta Medica
- Publisher
- Georg Thieme Verlag KG
- Published
- 2011-04-20
- Volume
- 77
- Issue
- 15
- Pages
- 1759-1765
- ISSN
- 0032-0943 (ISSN-L)
- 1439-0221
- OpenAlex
- W1985490305
- Cited by
- 61
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 5
- FWCI
- 1.82
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Planta Medica (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Plant biochemistry and biosynthesis
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Plant tissue culture and regeneration
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Sesquiterpenes and Asteraceae Studies
- Keywords
- artemisinin biosynthesis, Artemisia annua, antisense gene silencing, sesquiterpene synthase, transgenic plants, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation
- MeSH terms
- Polycyclic Sesquiterpenes, Anti-Infective Agents, Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal, Drugs, Chinese Herbal, Ligases, Medicine, Chinese Traditional, Plant Proteins, Plants, Medicinal, Plasmids, RNA, Messenger, Sesquiterpenes, Down-Regulation, Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic, DNA, Antisense, DNA, Complementary, Gene Expression Regulation, Plant, Plant Leaves, Plant Shoots, DNA, Plant, RNA, Plant, Plants, Genetically Modified, Artemisia annua, Seedlings, Artemisinins
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