Abstract

Polyphenols are important constituents of food products of plant origin and represent major antioxidants in our diet, since endogenous defense mechanisms are inadequate for the complete prevention of oxidative damage. The most abundant types of polyphenols found in the human diet are flavonoids, most often conjugated as glycosides.Among different sources of dietary antioxidants, artichoke extracts are particularly rich in bioavailable poliphenolic compounds as flavonoids and are important for their marked antioxidative potential and cancer chemopreventive properties. The understanding of flavonoids biosynthesis and its regulation in artichoke is essential to enhance the levels of these bioactive molecules in plants used as food.The biosynthetic pathway leading to the accumulation of flavonoids has been elucidated using genetic and biochemical information from many plant species (parsley, maize, petunia, Antirrhinum species, Arabidopsis, apple and grapevine) and has been recently studied in artichoke, where several enzymes directly involved in the early steps of the biosynthesis of flavonoids have been isolated and characterized, but little is still known on the regulation of these genes.The fine regulation of flavonoids accumulation is achieved by combinatorial actions of transcription factors (TF) belonging to various classes, among which MYB TF. Two putative artichoke MYB TF genes were isolated from a BAC library and were sequenced using Illumina technology. Sequencing allowed the structural characterization of coding and promoter regions of both genes, which showed a high similarity to MYB TF of other plant species (e.g. Arabidopsis, tomato). A phylogenetic analysis of putative MYB factors showed that the two artichoke sequences cluster together in a group including MYB factors from other species involved in the pathway of flavonols and proanthocyanidin biosynthesis. Heterologous expression in bacteria to study protein/DNA interactions and quantitative real-time PCR have been performed to gain insights into the molecular mechanism of polyphenols regulation in this edible plant, contributing to future progress in the study of polyphenols accumulation.

Autore Pugliese

• Morgese Anita , Blanco Emanuela , Sonnante Gabriella

Tutti gli autori

• BLANCO E.; SABETTA W.; DANZI D.; MORGESE A.; SONNANTE G.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Non Disponibile

Anno di pubblicazione

2014

ISSN

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ISBN

978-88-904570-4-3

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

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