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Plant Physiology Preview Published on December 16, 2005; 10.1104/pp.105.070961
Received September 2, 2005 Role of Petal-Specific Orcinol O-Methyltransferases in the Evolution of Rose Scent
Laboratoire Reproduction et Développement des Plantes, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5667 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique-Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon-Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, IFR128 Biosciences Lyon-Gerland, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 69364 Lyon, France * Corresponding author; email: philippe.hugueney{at}ens-lyon.fr.
Orcinol O-methyltransferase (OOMT) 1 and 2 catalyze the last two steps of the biosynthetic pathway leading to the phenolic methyl ether 3,5-dimethoxytoluene (DMT), the major scent compound of many rose (Rosa x hybrida) varieties. Modern roses are descended from both European and Chinese species, the latter being producers of phenolic methyl ethers but not the former. Here we investigated why phenolic methyl ether production occurs in some but not all rose varieties. In DMT-producing varieties, OOMTs were shown to be localized specifically in the petal, predominanty in the adaxial epidermal cells. In these cells, OOMTs become increasingly associated with membranes during petal development, suggesting that the scent biosynthesis pathway catalyzed by these enzymes may be directly linked to the cells' secretory machinery. OOMT gene sequences were detected in two non-DMT-producing rose species of European origin, but no mRNA transcripts were detected, and these varieties lacked both OOMT protein and enzyme activity. These data indicate that up-regulation of OOMT gene expression may have been a critical step in the evolution of scent production in roses.
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