Identification and characterization of a novel leaky vanillin aminotransferase (vamt) allele, affecting capsaicinoid composition in chili pepper (Capsicum chinense).

IF 3 3区农林科学 Q1 AGRONOMY

Molecular Breeding Pub Date : 2025-09-09 eCollection Date: 2025-09-01 DOI:10.1007/s11032-025-01595-9

Akihito Morimoto, Erasmus Kirii, Nagisa Okuda, Kaori Sano, Kenji Kobata, Sho Ohno, Tanjuro Goto, Yuichi Yoshida, Ken-Ichiro Yasuba, Yoshiyuki Tanaka

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Abstract

Capsaicinoids and their low pungent analogs are the important compounds to determine quality of chili pepper fruit in food industrial and medical purposes. Our previous screening for chili pepper bio-resources has shown that the pungent accession 'Charapita' (CH) (Capsicum chinense) has a unique composition with a higher capsinoid content. This study aimed to identify the mutation responsible for the high capsinoid content in CH. QTL analysis was performed using F₂ population between Red Habanero (RH) and CH, and it detected a major QTL on chromosome 3. Further genetic analysis showed that the QTL was narrowed down to approximately 400 kb region, which includes VAMT (vanillin aminotransferase). Allelism test demonstrated that CH possesses a leaky vamt allele. The sequencing analysis revealed that CH-type vamt allele has a unique amino acid substitution (G373E) due to a SNP in exon 15. CH-type vamt decreased pungency by 50%, and increased capsinoid content about three times compared with RH-type. We designated the CH-type allele as vamt ^L3. There was no difference in the expression levels of VAMT or other capsaicinoid biosynthetic genes between RH and CH. The vanillylamine synthesis activity was evaluated with crude extract from placental tissue. It showed that the activity in CH was 30 times less compared with RH. Given that the enzyme activity significantly decreased without transcriptional change, G373E likely reduces VAMT activity, conferring the characteristic composition of capsaicinoids and capsinoids. The novel vamt allele (vamt ^L3) will contribute to manipulate pungency level and capsinoid content in chili pepper breeding.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11032-025-01595-9.

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影响辣椒类辣椒素组成的新型泄密型香兰素转氨酶（vamt）等位基因的鉴定与鉴定。

辣椒素及其低刺激性类似物在食品、工业和医疗中是决定辣椒果实质量的重要化合物。我们之前对辣椒生物资源的筛选表明，辛辣品种“Charapita”（CH）（Capsicum chinense）具有独特的成分，类辣椒素含量较高。利用红哈瓦那辣椒（Red Habanero， RH）和红哈瓦那辣椒（CH）之间的F2群体进行QTL分析，发现3号染色体上有一个主要的QTL。进一步的遗传分析表明，该QTL被缩小到约400kb的区域，其中包括VAMT（香草醛转氨酶）。等位基因测试表明，CH具有一个漏形等位基因。测序分析显示，ch型vamt等位基因由于外显子15的SNP而具有独特的氨基酸替换（G373E）。与rh型相比，ch型辣椒的辣度降低了50%，辣椒素含量增加了约3倍。我们将ch型等位基因命名为vamt L3。VAMT和其他辣椒素生物合成基因在RH和CH之间的表达水平没有差异。用胎盘组织粗提物评价香草胺合成活性。结果表明，CH的活性比RH低30倍。鉴于酶活性显著降低而转录未发生变化，G373E可能降低了VAMT活性，从而赋予了辣椒素和辣椒素的特征成分。新的vamt等位基因（vamt L3）将在辣椒育种中控制辣椒的辛辣程度和类辣椒素含量。补充资料：在线版本包含补充资料，下载地址：10.1007/s11032-025-01595-9。

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来源期刊

Molecular Breeding 农林科学-农艺学

CiteScore

5.60

自引率

6.50%

发文量

审稿时长

1.5 months

期刊介绍： Molecular Breeding is an international journal publishing papers on applications of plant molecular biology, i.e., research most likely leading to practical applications. The practical applications might relate to the Developing as well as the industrialised World and have demonstrable benefits for the seed industry, farmers, processing industry, the environment and the consumer. All papers published should contribute to the understanding and progress of modern plant breeding, encompassing the scientific disciplines of molecular biology, biochemistry, genetics, physiology, pathology, plant breeding, and ecology among others. Molecular Breeding welcomes the following categories of papers: full papers, short communications, papers describing novel methods and review papers. All submission will be subject to peer review ensuring the highest possible scientific quality standards. Molecular Breeding core areas: Molecular Breeding will consider manuscripts describing contemporary methods of molecular genetics and genomic analysis, structural and functional genomics in crops, proteomics and metabolic profiling, abiotic stress and field evaluation of transgenic crops containing particular traits. Manuscripts on marker assisted breeding are also of major interest, in particular novel approaches and new results of marker assisted breeding, QTL cloning, integration of conventional and marker assisted breeding, and QTL studies in crop plants.