Insights into dammarane-type triterpenoid saponin biosynthesis from the telomere-to-telomere genome of Gynostemma pentaphyllum

Abstract

Gynostemma pentaphyllum (Thunb.) Makino, a perennial climbing vine in the Cucurbitaceae family, has been widely used in traditional medicine for over 600 years (Blumert and Liu, 1999). It serves as a valuable natural source of over 200 dammarane-type saponins with notable bioactive properties, including anti-cancer, cardioprotective, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, and anti-diabetic activities (Li et al., 2016; Nguyen et al., 2021). Interestingly, G. pentaphyllum has been found to contain ginsenosides and other structurally similar dammarane triterpenoids despite its distant phylogenetic relationship to Panax ginseng (Fan et al., 2017; Ahmed et al., 2023).