Analysis on correlation between 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutary-coenzyme A reductase gene polymorphism of Glycyrrhiza uralensis and content of glycyrrhizic acid / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To reveal the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutary-coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) gene polymorphism of Glycyrrhiza uralensis, and the correlation between HMGR gene polymorphism and the content of glycyrrhizic acid.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Liquorice plants containing different content of glycyrrhizic acid were used as materials. RT-PCR was used to amplify their HMGR gene sequences, which were connected with vector pMD19-T for clone sequencing. Multiple alignments were performed to analyse HMGR gene polymorphism of G. uralensis. Then the correlation between HMGR gene polymorphism and the content of glycyrrhizic acid was revealed.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>HMGR gene sequences polymorphism included codon mutation, base substitution mutation, copy number polymorphism and allele heterozygosity. There were 4 types of mutations in HMGR gene coding amino acid sequences, namely -HSL, -HSV, GALLV, GALSV. Among them, -HSV type was common in liquorice plants, -HSL type only existed in liquorice plants with low content of glycyrrhizic acid, and GALSV type only existed in liquorice plants with high content of glycyrrhizic acid.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>HMGR gene sequences of G. uralensis are highly polymorphic and related to the content of glycyrrhizic acid.</p>