Transcriptome Analysis Reveals the Genetic Basis of the Resveratrol Biosynthesis Pathway in an Endophytic Fungus (Alternaria sp. MG1) Isolated from Vitis vinifera

Jinxin Che, Junling Shi, Zhenhong Gao, Yan Zhang

Alternaria sp. MG1, an endophytic fungus previously isolated from Merlot grape, produces resveratrol from glucose, showing similar metabolic flux to the phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway, currently found solely in plants. In order to identify the resveratrol biosynthesis pathway in this strain at the gene level, de novo transcriptome sequencing was conducted using Illumina paired-end sequencing. A total of 22,954,434 high-quality reads were assembled into contigs and 18,570 unigenes were identified. Among these unigenes, 14,153 were annotated in the NCBI non-redundant protein database and 5341 were annotated in the Swiss-Prot database. After KEGG mapping, 2701 unigenes were mapped onto 115 pathways. Eighty-four unigenes were annotated in major pathways from glucose to resveratrol, coding 20 enzymes for glycolysis, 10 for phenylalanine biosynthesis, 4 for phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and 4 for stilbenoid biosynthesis. Chalcone synthase was identified for resveratrol biosynthesis in this strain, due to the absence of stilbene synthase. All the identified enzymes indicated a reasonable biosynthesis pathway from glucose to resveratrol via glycolysis, phenylalanine biosynthesis, phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, and stilbenoid pathways. These results provide essential evidence for the occurrence of resveratrol biosynthesis in Alternaria sp. MG1 at the gene level, facilitating further elucidation of the molecular mechanisms involved in this strain's secondary metabolism.