A RESOURCE FOR GENE DISCOVERY IN THE GINSENOSIDE BIOSYNTHESIS: ANALYSIS OF GINSENG EXPRESSED SEQUENCE TAGS

¹ Eugentech Inc. 52-Oun Dong, Yusong, Daejon 305-333, Korea

² Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), 52-Oun Dong, Yusong, Daejon 305-333, Korea

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) has become a rapid and cost-effective tool for gaining information about gene expression and provided an extensive reservoir for cloning of massive genes and contents of DNA chip. Korea ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Myer) is a typical medicinal plant that has been widely used as a traditional medicine since ancient time owing to its stimulating and tonic properties. In order to create a resource for gene discovery, which involved in biosynthesis of ginsenoside have been suggested as major active component of ginseng roots, we produced 6,511 unique ESTs from four ginseng libraries. About 61.6% of the ESTs have significant homology to previously deposited sequence with greater than expectation value E-10. Putative functions could be assigned to 3,259 EST and functionally classification show that 4.0% EST was involved in secondary metabolism, and 3.0% was in signal transduction. An additional 10.8% of the ESTs did not matched to any other protein sequences in existing databases. The cDNA library and the ESTs database will be used as valuable resources for isolating genes involved in ginsenoside metabolism and regulation.