Chromosome-level genome assembly and functional characterization of terpene synthases provide insights into the volatile terpenoid biosynthesis of Wurfbainia villosa

Wurfbainia villosa is a well-known medicinal and edible plant that is widely cultivated in the Lingnan region of China. Its dried fruits (called Fructus Amomi) are broadly used in traditional Chinese medicine for curing gastrointestinal diseases and are rich in volatile terpenoids. Here, we report a high-quality chromosome-level genome assembly of W. villosa with a total size of approximately 2.80 Gb, 42 588 protein-coding genes, and a very high percentage of repetitive sequences (87.23%). Genome analysis showed that W. villosa likely experienced a recent whole-genome duplication event prior to the W. villosa-Zingiber officinale divergence (approximately 11 million years ago), and a recent burst of long terminal repeat insertions afterward. The W. villosa genome enabled the identification of 17 genes involved in the terpenoid skeleton biosynthesis pathway and 66 terpene synthase (TPS) genes. We found that tandem duplication events have an important contribution to the expansion of WvTPSs, which likely drove the production of volatile terpenoids. In addition, functional characterization of 18 WvTPSs, focusing on the TPS-a and TPS-b subfamilies, showed that most of these WvTPSs are multi-product TPS and are predominantly expressed in seeds. The present study provides insights into the genome evolution and the molecular basis of the volatile terpenoids diversity in W. villosa. The genome sequence also represents valuable resources for the functional gene research and molecular breeding of W. villosa.