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Producing low-caffeine tea through post-transcriptional silencing of caffeine synthase mRNA

IR@CSIR-IHBT

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Title Producing low-caffeine tea through post-transcriptional silencing
of caffeine synthase mRNA
 
Creator Mohanpuria, P
kumar, Vinay
Ahuja, Paramvir Singh
Yadav , S K
 
Subject Plant sciences
Plant Biotechnology
 
Description In this study, attempt has been made to produce
a selected cultivar of tea with low-caffeine content using
RNAi technology. The caffeine biosynthetic pathway in tea
has been proposed to involve three N-methyltransferases
such as xanthosine methyltransferase, 7-N-methylxanthine
methyltransferase and 3, 7-dimethylxanthine methyltransferase.
Last two steps of caffeine biosynthesis in tea have
been known to be catalyzed by a bifunctional enzyme
known as caffeine synthase. To suppress the caffeine
synthesis in the selected tea [Camellia sinensis (L.) O.
Kuntze] cv. Kangra jat, we isolated a partial fragment of
caffeine synthase (CS) from the same cultivar and used to
design RNAi construct (pFGC1008-CS). Somatic embryos
were transformed with the developed construct using biolistic
method. Transformed somatic embryos showed
reduction in the levels of CS transcript expression as well
as in caffeine content. Plants were regenerated from the
transformed somatic embryos. Transgenic plants showed a
significant suppression of CS transcript expression and also
showed a reduction of 44–61% in caffeine and 46–67% in
theobromine contents as compared to the controls. These
results suggest that the RNAi construct developed here
using a single partial fragment of CS gene reduced the
expression of the targeted endogenous gene significantly.
However, the reduction in theobromine content in addition
to caffeine documented the involvement of this single CS
in the catalysis of last two methyl transfer steps in caffeine
biosynthesis of tea.
 
Date 2011
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://ihbt.csircentral.net/1076/1/129_Producing_26-12-2012.pdf
Mohanpuria, P and kumar, Vinay and Ahuja, Paramvir Singh and Yadav , S K (2011) Producing low-caffeine tea through post-transcriptional silencing of caffeine synthase mRNA. Plant Mol Biol, 76. pp. 523-534.
 
Relation http://ihbt.csircentral.net/1076/