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Perilla produces the cyclohexanoid monoterpene perillaldehyde as a major constituent of an essential oil that is accumulated in its glandular trichomes. Perillaldehyde is a marker compound for quality control of soyo and has biological activities such as antibacterial, sedative, or vasodilatory effects. The predicted perillaldehyde formation involves the cyclization of geranyl diphosphate, hydroxylation, and oxidation, and cytochrome P450 plays a crucial role in perillaldehyde biosynthesis. In this study, a cytochrome P450-type enzyme with perillyl alcohol and perillaldehyde synthase activities was isolated by analyzing an expressed sequence tag library from several oil types of pure lines of perilla. A recombinant protein with a sequence that was highly specific for the type of perillaldehyde was expressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and evaluated by an in vitro enzymatic reaction. The recombinant protein catalyzed the hydroxylation and oxidation of limonene to perillyl alcohol and perillaldehyde. Cytochrome P450 limonene-7-hydroxylase cDNA from Perilla frutescens has been previously isolated. The cytochrome P450 isolated in this study shares 37% amino-acid identity with the previously isolated enzyme; however, it may have different characteristics., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Cytochrome P450 mono-oxygenases from peppermint, spearmint and perilla (all members of the family Lamiaceae) mediate the regiospecific hydroxylation of the parent olefin (-)-limonene to produce essential oil components oxygenated at C3, C6 and C7, respectively. Cloning, expression and mutagenesis of cDNAs encoding the peppermint limonene-3-hydroxylase and the spearmint limonene-6-hydroxylase have allowed the identification of a single amino acid residue which determines the regiospecificity of oxygenation by these two enzymes. A hybridization strategy provided a cytochrome P450 limonene hydroxylase cDNA from perilla with which to further evaluate the structural determinants of regiospecificity for oxygenation of the common substrate (-)-limonene. The perilla cDNA was a partial clone of 1550bp (lacking the N-terminal membrane insertion domain), and shared 66% identity with the peppermint 3-hydroxylase and spearmint 6-hydroxylase at the amino acid level. The perilla cytochrome P450 was expressed in Escherichia coli as a chimeric protein fused with the N-terminal membrane insertion domain of the limonene-3-hydroxylase. The kinetically competent recombinant protein was characterized and shown to produce a mixture of C3-, C6- and C7-hydroxylated limonene derivatives with a distribution of 33%, 14% and 53%, respectively., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Geraniol synthases were isolated from five pure strains of Perilla citriodora and Perilla frutescens which vary in essential oil type, the main compounds of which were citral, elsholtziaketone, perillaketone, and perillene, respectively. This result supports the putative biosynthetic pathways of these three furylalkenes which are all produced by way of citral. Nucleotide sequences of geraniol synthases from three oil types of P. citriodora were identical, and almost the same as the sequence from P. frutescens, a species with twice the chromosome number of P. citriodora. This identity in sequence between P. citriodora and P. frutescens, together with other previous results, indicates that P. frutescens was formed as an amphidiploid of P. citriodora and an unknown wild species.