Dammarenediol-II production confers TMV tolerance in transgenic tobacco expressing Panax ginseng dammarenediol-II synthase.

Panax ginseng is one of the famous medicinal plants. Ginsenosides, a class of tetracyclic triterpene saponins, are mainly responsible for its pharmacological activity. Most ginsenosides are composed of dammarenediol-II aglycone with various sugar moieties. Dammarenediol-II synthase is the first enzyme in the biosynthesis of ginsenosides. Here, we report that transgenic tobacco expressing the P. ginseng dammarenediol-II synthase gene (PgDDS) produced dammarenediol-II, and conferred resistance to Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Upon infection with TMV, lesions developed more rapidly in transgenic tobacco plants, and their size was smaller than those of wild-type plants. Transgenic tobacco plants showed a low level of both the viral titer and mRNA accumulation of TMV coat protein (CP) compared with the wild type. The production of dammarenediol-II in transgenic tobacco stimulated the expression of tobacco pathogenesis-related genes (PR1 and PR2) under both virus-untreated and -treated conditions. When the leaves of wild-type plants were inoculated with a mixture of TMV and dammarenediol-II, the leaves exhibited a reduced viral concentration and TMV-CP expression than those receiving TMV treatment alone. When the leaves of P. ginseng were infected with TMV, transcription of PgDDS was significantly increased. Transgenic P. ginseng plants harboring a β-glucuronidase (GUS) gene driven by the PgDDS promoter were constructed. The GUS expression was activated when the transgenic ginseng plants were treated with TMV. These results indicate that the medicinally important dammarenediol-II can be ectopically produced in tobacco, and the production of dammarenediol-II in tobacco plants allows them to adopt a viral defense system.