Fecha de publicación: 09/06/2024 Fuente: ISHS (International Society for Horticultural Science) Post date: Sunday 9 June 2024
Author:
ISHS Secretariat

Lijun Zhou, a PhD candidate at the School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, China, under the supervision of Prof. Chao Yu, is exploring the mechanisms responsible for the fragrance of roses. Rose is one of the most important ornamental plants with high edible and medicinal values, and is widely cultivated worldwide for perfume production. Rosa gigantea, with its strong sweet fragrance, has played a prominent role in the breeding of the hybrid tea roses. Using genomic, transcriptomic and metabolomic analysis, Lijun explored the mechanisms for the synthesis of the major components extracted from R. gigantea. She extracted the rose fragrance hydrosol and explored its antioxidant activity for commercial development. A gap-free genome assembly was generated for the tea-scent of R. gigantea to provide a detailed scientific basis for a comprehensive understanding of the fragrance bio-pathways. Metabolomic assessment by SPME (solid phase micro extraction)-GC (gas chromatography)-MS (mass spectrometry), combined with sensory analysis, revealed that R. gigantea contains diverse floral aroma compounds with many commercial applications, including eugenol, 3,5-dimethoxytoluene, 2-phenylethanol, and linalool. Time-ordered gene co-expression networks (TO-GCNs) revealed volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and genes from benzenoids/phenylpropanoids that have a major influence on the fragrance. She also uncovered the specific gene regulators underpinning the distinct scent, such as MYB and bHLH, which dominated the gene regulation of eugenol in roses. The metabolome analysis of hydrosol extracted from rose flowers showed that the main components of hydrosol and flowers both contained eugenol and 3,5-dimethoxybenzene. The antioxidant activity of hydrosols extracted from R. gigantea was higher than that of the Damascus rose. An examination of different floral components showed that the antioxidant activity of eugenol was much higher than that of other components, such as linalool and β-ionone. In summary, her findings could provide a scientific basis for improving the fragrance of hybrid tea roses and promoting new plant essential oils for development and utilization in food storage, aromatherapy, cosmetics, and the perfume industry.
Lijun Zhou won the ISHS Young Minds Award for the best oral presentation at the IV Asian Horticultural Congress in Japan in August 2023.
Lijun Zhou, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, 100083 Beijing, China, e-mail: zhoulijun@bjfu.edu.cn
The article is available in Chronica HorticulturaeTags: fragranceCategories: Young Minds Award Winners