Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 16, 2025

Annotation of Plant Gene Function via Combined Genomics, Metabolomics and Informatics
Published on: June 17, 2012
Flavan-3-ol Galloylation-Related Functional Gene Cluster and the Functional Diversification of SCPL Paralogs in
Yue Zhao1, Shengbo Yao1, Xue Zhang1
1State Key Laboratory of Tea Plant Biology and Utilization, Key Laboratory of Tea Biology and Tea Processing of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, International Joint Research Laboratory of Tea Chemistry and Health Effects of Ministry of Education, Anhui Provincial Laboratory, Hefei 230036, Anhui, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
The high accumulation of galloylated flavan-3-ols in Camellia sp. is a noteworthy phenomenon. We identified a flavan-3-ol galloylation-related functional gene cluster in tannin-rich plant Camellia sp., which included UGT84A22 and SCPL-AT gene clusters. We investigated the possible correlation between the accumulation of metabolites and the expression of SCPL-ATs and UGT84A22. The results revealed that C. sinensis, C. ptilophylla, and C. oleifera accumulated galloylated cis-flavan-3-ols (EGCG), galloylated trans-flavan-3-ols (GCG), and hydrolyzed tannins, respectively; however, C. nitidissima did not accumulate any galloylated compounds. C. nitidissima exhibited no expression of SCPL-AT or UGT84A22, whereas the other three species of Camellia exhibited various expression patterns. This indicated that the functions of the paralogs of SCPL-AT vary. Enzymatic analysis revealed that SCPL5 was neofunctionalized as a noncatalytic chaperone paralog, a type of chaerone-like protein, associating with flavan-3-ol galloylation; moreover, CsSCPL4 was subfunctionalized in association with the galloylation of cis- and trans-flavan-3-ols. In C. nitidissima, an SCPL4 homolog was noted with mutations in two cysteine residues forming a disulfide bond, which suggested that this homolog was defunctionalized. The findings of this study improve our understanding of the functional diversification of SCPL paralogs in Camellia sp.
Related Concept Videos
C4 Pathway and CAM
C4 Pathway
The C4 pathway is used by plants such as...
Exon Recombination
Exon shuffling follows “splice frame rules.” Each exon...
Cell Signaling in Plants
Gene Duplication and Divergence
The duplicated copies of the gene are called Paralogs. Paralogs with similar sequences and functions form a gene family. Across several species, a large number of gene families are...

