Biochemical Analysis of Latex of Euphorbia cotinifolia and In Silico Analysis of Genes Responsible for Latex Production in Comparison with Jatropha Sp.

Latex of family Euphorbiaceae is an important source of biofuel. Further, it is a rich resource of secondary metabolites such as alkaloids, flavonoids, tannins, glycosides, phytosterols, saponins etc. Biochemical tests were carried out for the presence of alkaloids, phenols, flavonoids, terpenoids, tannins, sterols, glycosides, carbohydrates, proteins and saponins from the Euphorbia cotinifolia extract. Hydrocarbons fractions were characterised by NMR spectroscopy. In silico comparison of protein sequences of DGAT 1 genes responsible for triacyglcerol biosynthesis across various members of energy crops was done by taking DGAT 1 protein sequence of Jatropha sp. as a reference. The high level of conservation of DGAT 1 functional domain sequences was observed in the multiple sequence alignment with small variations in form of Indels in few plant species. The analysis of conserved domains was carried using the SMART domain analysis server revealed highly conserved DGAT 1 domain, particularly nine transmembrane regions in all the species compared except for Morus notabilis lacking the last two transmembrane regions. To inspect the evolutionary history of this protein family among the plants, the phylogenetic tree was constructed with MEGA 6.06 program using the neighbour-joining (NJ) method. The predicted variations would help to identify and genetic modification of seeds to enhance the oil yield in plants. The database sequences presented here are expected to serve as valuable resources for the stepping up applied research.