Plant and Cell Physiology Advance Access originally published online on March 10, 2006
Plant and Cell Physiology 2006 47(5):565-571; doi:10.1093/pcp/pcj031
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Lanosterol Synthase in Dicotyledonous Plants
1 RIKEN Plant Science Center, 1-7-22 Suehirocho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 230-0045 Japan
2 Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033 Japan
3 Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, 1-33 Yayoicho, Inage-ku, Chiba, 263-8522 Japan
4 Gifu Pharmaceutical University, 5-6-1 Mitahora-higashi, Gifu, Gifu, 502-8585 Japan
* Corresponding author: E-mail, muranaka{at}riken.jp; Fax, +81-45-503-9492.
Sterols are important as structural components of plasma membranes and precursors of steroidal hormones in both animals and plants. Plant sterols show a wide structural variety and significant structural differences from those of animals. To elucidate the origin of structural diversity in plant sterols, their biosynthesis has been extensively studied [Benveniste (2004) Annu. Rev. Plant. Biol. 55: 429, Schaller (2004) Plant Physiol. Biochem. 42: 465]. The differences in the biosynthesis of sterols between plants and animals begin at the step of cyclization of 2,3-oxidosqualene, which is cyclized to lanosterol in animals and to cycloartenol in plants. However, here we show that plants also have the ability to synthesize lanosterol directly from 2,3-oxidosqualene, which may lead to a new pathway to plant sterols. The Arabidopsis gene At3g45130, designated LAS1, encodes a functional lanosterol synthase in plants. A phylogenetic tree showed that LAS1 belongs to the previously uncharacterized branch of oxidosqualene cyclases, which differs from the cycloartenol synthase branch. Panax PNZ on the same branch was also shown to be a lanosterol synthase in a yeast heterologous expression system. The higher diversity of plant sterols may require two biosynthetic routes in steroidal backbone formation.
The nucleotide sequence reported in this paper has been submitted to DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank database under accession number AB247155 (LAS1).
5 These authors contributed equally to this work.
(Received January 31, 2006; Accepted March 7, 2006)
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