Molecular characterization of limonoid UDP-glucosyltransferase gene of commercial varieties of sweet orange and tangerine

• Grant number: 12/07452-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2012
• End date: May 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biochemistry - Molecular Biology
• Principal Investigator: Dario Abel Palmieri
• Grantee: Bárbara Cristina Martins Fernandes Paes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Natural products have great industrial interest for conducting to the discovery of new drugs, antibiotics, insecticides and herbicides, and fortified foods. The terpenoids are the largest and most diverse class of products of secondary metabolism. The limonoids, triterpenes that occur naturally in species of the families Rutaceae and Meliaceae, see being widely studied due to their pharmacological properties and therapeutic effects. The CitEST (database of the genome of citrus), developed by Sylvio Moreira Citrus Center of the Campinas Agronomic Institute, now has more than 560,000 available sequences. In recent work developed by our group at the Laboratory of Plant Biotechnology UNESP - Campus de Assis identified in this database four unigenes potentially related to the synthesis of limonoids in citrus. The present work aims to continue this analysis with the objective of molecular characterization of the gene coding for limonoid UDP-glucosyltransferase (LGT) in commercial varieties of sweet orange and tangerine in production in the State of São Paulo. The information obtained should allow to exploit of the production of this compound by a change of secondary metabolism of the plant, or even on heterologous expression of appropriate systems.(AU)