Comparative Analysis of Psoralen and Bergapten Contents and Transcriptome Characterization in <italic>Ficus hirta</italic> with Different Leaf Shapes

INTRODUCTION: Ficus hirta is a common Chinese herbal medicine and edible plant resource in the Lingnan area of China. It contains coumarins, flavonoids and other chemical compounds, which have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral and antitumor effects. However, F. hirta exhibits significant morphological variation in leaf shapes due to its high genetic diversity. RATIONALE: To investigate the relationship between leaf shape differences and the contents of major active compounds, LC-MS/MS was performed to determine the contents of psoralen and bergapten in F. hirta roots from three different leaf shapes (entire leaf (EL), lobed leaf (LL), and palmately deeply lobed leaf (PDL)), and transcriptome sequencing was further employed to explore the potential molecular mechanisms underlying these content variations. RESULTS: The results showed that PDL exhibited significantly higher psoralen content than EL and LL, while EL had significantly higher bergapten content than LL, but no significant difference was observed between EL and PDL. A total of 60.9 Gb clean reads were obtained, and 46 194 unigenes were assembled. F. hirta had the highest homology with Morus notabilis, according to the homologous sequencing alignment. A total of 2 355, 2 067 and 2 001 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened from three comparison groups, PDL_vs_EL, PDL_vs_LL, and LL_vs_EL, respectively. These DEGs were primarily enriched in pathways such as phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, and plant-pathogen interactions. CONCLUSION: There were differences in the contents of psoralen and bergapten among the three leaf shapes of F. hirta. The phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and plant-pathogen interaction pathways may play crucial roles in the biosynthesis and accumulation of psoralen and bergapten in F. hirta. This study preliminarily revealed the correlation between the leaf morphology and major active compounds of F. hirta and extended its public transcriptome database, which will provide a reference for further utilizing different leaf shapes of F. hirta germplasm resources and quality breeding.