Metabolism and transcriptome profiling provides insight into the genes and transcription factors involved in monoterpene biosynthesis of borneol chemotype of Cinnamomum camphora induced by mechanical damage

Background The borneol chemotype of Cinnamomum camphora (BCC), a monoterpene-rich woody plant species, is the sole source prescribed by the Chinese Pharmacopoeia for the production of natural D-borneol, a major monoterpene in BCC used for millennia as a topical analgesic in China. Nevertheless, the possible gene-regulatory roles of transcription factors (TFs) in BCC’s monoterpenoid biosynthesis remained unknown. Here, a joint analysis of the transcriptome and terpenoid metabolome of BCC induced by mechanical damage (MD) was used to comprehensively explore the interaction between TFs and terpene synthase (TPS) unigenes that might participate in monoterpene biosynthesis in BCC. Results Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis detected 14 monoterpenes and seven sesquiterpenes. All but two monoterpenes underwent a significantly increased accumulation after the MD treatment. RNA sequencing data revealed that 10 TPS, 82 MYB, 70 AP2/ERF, 38 BHLH, 31 WRKY, and 29 bZIP unigenes responded to the MD treatment. A correlation analysis revealed that three monoterpene synthase genes (CcTPS1, CcTPS3, CcTPS4) highly correlated with multiple monoterpenes, namely D-borneol, camphor, and bornyl acetate, which could be responsible for monoterpenoid biosynthesis in BCC. Furthermore, five WRKY, 15 MYB, 10 ERF/AP2, five bZIP, and two BHLH genes had strong, positive correlations with CcTPS1 or CcTPS4, judging by their high coefficient values (R2 > 0.8). The bioinformatics results were verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Conclusion This study provides insight into the genes involved in the biosynthesis and regulation of monoterpene in BCC and thus provides a pool of candidate genes for future mechanistic analyses of how monoterpenes accumulate in BCC.