Data from: Evolutionary routes to biochemical innovation revealed by integrative analysis of a plant-defense related specialized metabolic pathway

The diversity of life on Earth is a result of continual innovations in molecular networks influencing morphology and physiology. Plant specialized metabolism produces hundreds of thousands of compounds, offering striking examples of these innovations. To understand how this novelty is generated, we investigated the evolution of the Solanaceae family-specific, trichome-localized acylsugar biosynthetic pathway using a combination of mass spectrometry, RNA-seq, enzyme assays, RNAi and phylogenetics in non-model species. Our results reveal that hundreds of acylsugars are produced across the Solanaceae family and even within a single plant, revealing this phenotype to be hyper-diverse. The relatively short biosynthetic pathway experienced repeated cycles of innovation over the last 100 million years that include gene duplication and divergence, gene loss, evolution of substrate preference and promiscuity. This study provides mechanistic insights into the emergence of plant chemical novelty, and offers a template for investigating the ~300,000 non-model plant species that remain underexplored.

地球上生命的多样性，源自影响生物体形态与生理的分子网络的持续革新。植物特化代谢途径可合成数十万种化合物，堪称这类进化革新的典型范例。为厘清此类代谢新颖性的产生机制，我们结合质谱分析法（mass spectrometry）、RNA测序（RNA-seq）、酶活性测定（enzyme assays）、RNA干扰（RNAi）以及非模式物种的系统发育学分析，对茄科（Solanaceae）特有的、定位于腺毛（trichome）的酰基糖（acylsugar）生物合成通路的演化历程开展了研究。研究结果表明，整个茄科家族乃至单株植物均可产生数百种酰基糖，证实该表型具有极高的多样性。这条相对短小的生物合成通路在过去1亿年间经历了多轮创新循环，涵盖基因重复与分化、基因丢失、底物偏好性演化以及底物混杂性的演变。本研究为植物化学新颖性的起源提供了机制层面的深入见解，同时为探索约30万种尚未得到充分研究的非模式植物物种提供了可供借鉴的研究范式。