三萜皂苷生物合成途径及关键酶的研究进展

Research Advances on Triterpenoid Saponins Biosynthesis and Its Key Enzymes

三萜皂苷是植物界中具有多种生物活性的一类重要的植物次生代谢产物,是许多药用植物或中药材的重要活性成分之一,阐明三萜皂苷的生物合成途径具有重要的理论意义与广阔的应用前景。近年来,三萜皂苷整个生物合成途径的阐明,尤其是三萜碳环骨架合成及环上复杂官能化等相关酶基因的确定与克隆,仍是众多学者关注与研究的热点。本文对三萜皂苷的生物合成途经和有关"鲨烯及三萜碳环骨架合成和碳环上的复杂官能化"的关键酶进行了综述,为深入阐明三萜皂苷生物合成途径及人工生物合成提供理论基础。

As an important kind of plant secondary metabolites and widely distributed in the plant kingdom, triter-penoid saponins have a variety of biological activities. The constitution and content of triterpenoid saponin are deter-mined by some key enzymes and their expressing level in triterpenoid saponins biosynthesis pathway. So, it is very important to illuminate the molecular mechanism of triterpenoid saponins biosynthetic pathway. In recent years, illu-mination of the entire biosynthetic pathway especially the confirmation and cloning of the key enzymes, such as squa-lene synthase, squalene epoxidase, cytochrome P450 monooxygenase and UDP-glycosyltransferase, had become one of the hot spots by many scholars. In this paper, the entire biosynthetic pathway and some kinds of key enzymes in-volved in the synthesis of carbon skeleton, and its oxidation, and glycation were reviewed for further demonstrating the biosynthetic pathway of triterpenoid saponins and providing a theoretical basis for artificial biosynthesis.