Bioinformatics Analysis of the Expression of Key Genes Involved in Biosynthesis Pathway of Carvacrol of White Savory Essential Oil Under Drought Stress

White savory (Satureja mutica Fisch. & CAMey) is a member of the mint family that is extended in theeastern and western of Iran. This plant has antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. In this study, WhiteSavory was planted in two conditions of drought control and treatment at ۳۰% of field capacity in the Facultyof Agriculture, Shahid Chamran University. Using the KEGG database, the biosynthetic pathway and genesinvolved in the production of this pathway were determined. The active ingredient in White Savory isCarvacrol, in which three key genes including: Geranyl geranyl de phosphate synthase, Limonene synthase,Limonene hydroxylase are involved in the biosynthesis pathway of Carvacrol. Utilizing bioinformatics andreal-time PCR, the expression of genes effective in biosynthesis of active substance and biochemicalpathways was largely determined. Due to the lack of white savory genomic information, the gene sequencesof plants of this family were examined. After predicting the sequence of these three genes, suitable primerswere designed. In this study, the intracellular location of proteins was determined to be all three cytoplasmicgenes. The properties and characteristics of each gene were also examined. Investigation of physical andchemical properties of proteins that are unstable proteins in all three genes, signal prediction of potentialpeptides in proteins and prediction of spatial structure of proteins, which includes structural evaluation andestimation of structural model quality through bioinformatics detection took. Bioinformatics study revealedthat all three genes do not have peptide signal sequences. The quality of the structural model was examinedthrough QMEANDisCo Local and QMEAN Z-Scores. All genes were found to be highly similar to thementioned structural model. According to the authors of this study, bioinformatics study of genes at theprotein level will create more awareness and facilitate future research.

Keywords:

White savory , Carvacrol , Biosynthetic pathway