Scent evolution in Chinese roses
Open Access
- 15 April 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 105 (15) , 5927-5932
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0711551105
Abstract
The phenolic methyl ether 3,5-dimethoxytoluene (DMT) is a major scent compound of many modern rose varieties, and its fragrance participates in the characteristic “tea scent” that gave their name to Tea and Hybrid Tea roses. Among wild roses, phenolic methyl ether (PME) biosynthesis is restricted to Chinese rose species, but the progenitors of modern roses included both European and Chinese species (e.g., Rosa chinensis cv Old Blush), so this trait was transmitted to their hybrid progeny. The last steps of the biosynthetic pathways leading to DMT involve two methylation reactions catalyzed by the highly similar orcinol O -methyltransferases (OOMT) 1 and 2. OOMT1 and OOMT2 enzymes exhibit different substrate specificities that are consistent with their operating sequentially in DMT biosynthesis. Here, we show that these different substrate specificities are mostly due to a single amino acid polymorphism in the phenolic substrate binding site of OOMTs. An analysis of the OOMT gene family in 18 species representing the diversity of the genus Rosa indicated that only Chinese roses possess both the OOMT2 and the OOMT1 genes. In addition, we provide evidence that the Chinese-rose-specific OOMT1 genes most probably evolved from an OOMT2 -like gene that has homologues in the genomes of all extant roses. We propose that the emergence of the OOMT1 gene may have been a critical step in the evolution of scent production in Chinese roses.Keywords
This publication has 42 references indexed in Scilit:
- Evolution of Cinnamate/p-Coumarate Carboxyl Methyltransferases and Their Role in the Biosynthesis of MethylcinnamatePlant Cell, 2007
- The genus Rosa (Rosoideae, Rosaceae) revisited: molecular analysis of nrITS-1 and atpB-rbcL intergenic spacer (IGS) versus conventional taxonomyBotanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2005
- Volatile components of tea-scented modern roses and ancient Chinese rosesFlavour and Fragrance Journal, 2005
- Evolution by gene duplication: an updateTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2003
- Two O-Methyltransferases Isolated from Flower Petals of Rosa chinensis var. spontanea Involved in Scent BiosynthesisJournal of Bioscience and Bioengineering, 2003
- Evaluating adaptive evolutionNature Genetics, 2002
- CLUSTAL W: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choiceNucleic Acids Research, 1994
- Comparative Protein Modelling by Satisfaction of Spatial RestraintsJournal of Molecular Biology, 1993
- Volatile Constituents of RosesPublished by American Chemical Society (ACS) ,1993
- A new look at the statistical model identificationIEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 1974