Guodong Wang

Chinese Academy of Sciences | CAS · Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology

Terpenoids are the largest and most diverse class of plant specialized metabolites, which function in diverse physiological processes during plant development. In the biosynthesis of plant terpenoids, short-chain prenyltransferase (SC-PT), together with terpene synthase (TPS), play a role in determining terpenoid diversity. SC-PTs biosynthesize pre...

Background Soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) is one of the most important oil and protein crops. Ever-increasing soybean consumption necessitates the improvement of varieties for more efficient production. However, both correlations among different traits and genetic interactions among genes that affect a single trait pose a challenge to soybean bre...

Xanthohumol (XN) and demethylxanthohumol (DMX) are specialized prenylated chalconoids with multiple pharmaceutical applications that accumulate to high levels in the glandular trichomes of hops (Humulus lupulus L.). Although all structural enzymes in the XN pathway have been functionally identified, biochemical mechanisms underlying highly efficien...

Bioactive gibberellins (GAs or diterpenes) are essential hormones in land plants that control many aspects of plant growth and development. In flowering plants, 13-OH GAs (having low bioactivity—for example, GA1) and 13-H GAs (having high bioactivity— for example, GA4) frequently coexist in the same plant. However, the identity of the native Arabid...

Land plants co-speciate with a diversity of continually expanding plant specialized metabolites (PSMs) and root microbial communities (microbiota). Homeostatic interactions between plants and root microbiota are essential for plant survival in natural environments. A growing appreciation of microbiota for plant health is fuelling rapid advances in...

The meroterpenoid hyperforin is responsible for the antidepressant activity of St John’s wort extracts but the genes controlling its biosynthesis are unknown. Based on genome mining and biochemical work, we characterize two biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) that encode the first three steps in biosynthesis of hyperforin precursors. Syntenic and phy...

D-2-Hydroxyglutarate (D-2HG) is an α-ketoglutarate-derived mitochondrial metabolite that causes D-2-hydroxyglutaric aciduria, a devastating developmental disorder. How D-2HG adversely affects mitochondria is largely unknown. Here, we report that in Caenorhabditis elegans, loss of the D-2HG dehydrogenase DHGD-1 causes D-2HG accumulation and mitochon...

Glandular trichomes, known as metabolic cell factories, have been proposed as highly suitable for metabolically engineering the production of plant high-value specialized metabolites. Natural pyrethrins, found only in Dalmatian pyrethrum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium), are insecticides with low mammalian toxicity and short environmental persistence. T...

Nitrogen is an essential macronutrient for all living organisms and is critical for crop productivity and quality. In higher plants, inorganic nitrogen is absorbed through roots and then assimilates into amino acids by the highly conserved glutamine synthetase (GS)/glutamine oxoglutarate aminotransferase/glutamate synthase (GOGAT) cycle. How nitrog...

Plants belonging to the genus Taraxacum are widespread all over the world, which contain rubber-producing and non-rubber-producing species. However, the genomic basis underlying natural rubber (NR) biosynthesis still needs more investigation. Here, we presented high-quality genome assemblies of rubber-producing T. kok-saghyz TK1151 and non-rubber-p...

Pogostone, a compound with various pharmaceutical activities, is a major constituent of the essential oil preparation called Pogostemonis Herba, which is obtained from the plant Pogostemon cablin. The biosynthesis of pogostone has not been elucidated, but 4-methylvaleryl-CoA (4MVCoA) is a likely precursor. We analyzed the distribution of pogostone...

Terpenes, the largest group of plant specialized metabolites, have received considerable attention due to their highly diverse biological activities. Monoterpenes (C10), sesquiterpenes (C15), diterpenes (C20), and triterpenes (C30) have been extensively investigated at both the biochemical and molecular levels over the past two decades. Sesterterpe...

Plants collectively produce hundreds thousands of organic chemicals (molecular weight<2 000) including the primary metabolites which are essential to plant growth, development, specialized metabolites which play key role for plant adaption to their environments. People are familiar with the bioactive plant specialized metabolites (PSM) due to their...

Class I terpene synthase (TPS) generates bioactive terpenoids with diverse backbones. Sesterterpene synthase (sester-TPS, C25), a branch of class I TPSs, was recently identified in Brassicaceae plants. However, the catalytic mechanisms of sester-TPSs are not fully understood. Here, we first identified three nonclustered functional sester-TPSs (AtTP...

In plants, gibberellins (GAs) play important roles in regulating growth and development. Early studies revealed the large chemodiversity of gibberellins in plants, but only GA 1 , GA 3 , GA 4 , and GA 7 show biological activity that controls plant development. However, the elucidation of the GA metabolic network at the molecular level has lagged fa...

Arginine catabolism involves enzyme-dependent reactions in both mitochondria and the cytosol, defects in which may lead to hyperargininemia, a devastating developmental disorder. It is largely unknown if defective arginine catabolism has any effects on mitochondria. Here we report that normal arginine catabolism is essential for mitochondrial homeo...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2019.01164.].

Benzaldedyde, commonly detected in plant VOC (volatile organic compounds) profiling, is derived from phenylalanine. However, the last enzymatic step for benzaldedyde formation, designated as benzaldehyde synthase, remains elusive for long time. Here, we demonstrated that cinnamoyl-CoA reductases are responsible for benzaldedyde production in cucumb...

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The Preiss-Handler pathway, which salvages nicotinate (NA) for NAD synthesis, is a conserved biochemical pathway in land plants. We previously demonstrated that various NA conjugations (mainly methylation and glycosylation) shared the NA detoxification function in all tested plants. It remains unclear whether other NA conjugates with low abundance...

Bird predation during seed maturation causes great loss to agricultural production. In this study, through GWAS analysis of a large-scale sorghum germplasm diversity panel, we identified that Tannin1, which encodes a WD40 protein functioning in the WD40/MYB/bHLH complex, controls bird feeding behavior in sorghum. Metabolic profiling analysis showed...

Metabolomics (defined as comprehensive small molecule chemical analysis), together with genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and phenomics, now plays a fundamental role in system biological studies. Chromatography-mass spectrometry machines, which have the characteristics of high resolution and high sensitivity, are widely used for metabolomics an...

Soybean (Glycine max) production is severely affected in unfavorable environments. Identification of regulatory factors conferring stress tolerance would facilitate soybean breeding. In this study, through coexpression network analysis of salt‐tolerant wild soybeans, together with molecular and genetic approaches, we unraveled a previously unidenti...

Zinc (Zn) deficiency is a critical problem in human nutrition. Rice is the main source of calories for nearly half of world's population but has the shortcoming, from a nutritional perspective, of being low in Zn and other essential nutrients. Here we performed analyses with cytokinin‐related mutants and transgenic lines to provide unequivocal evid...

Amino acid catabolism is frequently executed in mitochondria; however, it is largely unknown how aberrant amino acid metabolism affects mitochondria. Here we report the requirement for mitochondrial saccharopine degradation in mitochondrial homeostasis and animal development. In Caenorhbditis elegans , mutations in the saccharopine dehydrogenase (S...

Amino acid catabolism is frequently executed in mitochondria; however, it is largely unknown how aberrant amino acid metabolism affects mitochondria. Here we report the requirement for mitochondrial saccharopine degradation in mitochondrial homeostasis and animal development. In Caenorhbditis elegans, mutations in the saccharopine dehydrogenase (SD...

Seipin, the gene that causes Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy type 2 (BSCL2), is important for adipocyte differentiation and lipid homeostasis. Previous studies in Drosophila revealed that Seipin promotes ER calcium homeostasis through the Ca2+-ATPase SERCA, but little is known about the events downstream of perturbed ER calcium homeostas...

NAD biosynthesis, including from aspartate via the de novo pathway and from nicotinate (NA) via the Preiss-Handler pathway, is conserved in land plants. Meanwhile, different NA conjugates, which are mainly involved in NA detoxification, have been found in all tested land plants. Among these conjugates, MeNA (NA methyl ester) has been widely detecte...

Pre‐harvest sprouting (PHS) is an unfavorable trait in cereal crops which could seriously decrease grain yield and quality. Although some PHS‐associated quantitative trait loci (QTL) or genes in cereals have been reported, the molecular mechanism underlying PHS remains largely elusive. Here, we characterized a rice mutant, phs8, which exhibits PHS...

Sesterterpenes are usually found in plants and fungi, but are rare in bacteria. Here, we present the identification of StsC from Streptomyces somaliensis, a member of the UbiA superfamily, as a membrane-bound sesterterpene cyclase in bacteria. The cyclized products for StsC, somaliensenes A (1) and B (2), were identified by expressing the correspon...

Programmed cell death (PCD) is a fundamental biological process. Deficiency in MOSAIC DEATH 1 (MOD1), a plastid-localized enoyl-ACP reductase, leads to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and PCD, which can be suppressed by mitochondrial complex I mutations, indicating a signal from chloroplasts to mitochondria. However, this signal r...

Leaf senescence in plants is a coordinated process that involves remobilization of nutrients from senescing leaves to sink tissues. The molecular events associated with nutrient remobilization are however not well understood. In this study the tobacco system with a source-sink relationship between different leaf positions was used in analyzing the...