Genome-Wide Identification of CYP72A Gene Family and Expression Patterns Related to Jasmonic Acid Treatment and Steroidal Saponin Accumulation in Dioscorea zingiberensis

is a medicinal herb containing a large amount of steroidal saponins, which are the major bioactive compounds and the primary storage form of diosgenin. The gene family, belonging to cytochromes P450, exerts indispensable effects on the biosynthesis of numerous bioactive compounds. In this work, a total of 25 genes were identified in . and categorized into two groups according to the homology of protein sequences. The characteristics of their phylogenetic relationship, intron-exon organization, conserved motifs and -regulatory elements were performed by bioinformatics methods. The transcriptome data demonstrated that expression patterns of varied by tissues. Moreover, qRT-PCR results displayed diverse expression profiles of under different concentrations of jasmonic acid (JA). Likewise, eight metabolites in the biosynthesis pathway of steroidal saponins (four phytosterols, diosgenin, parvifloside, protodeltonin and dioscin) exhibited different contents under different concentrations of JA, and the content of total steroidal saponin was largest at the dose of 100 μmol/L of JA. The redundant analysis showed that 12 had a strong correlation with specialized metabolites. Those genes were negatively correlated with stigmasterol and cholesterol but positively correlated with six other specialized metabolites. Among all evaluated, , and contributed the most to the variation of specialized metabolites in the biosynthesis pathway of steroidal saponins. This study provides valuable information for further research on the biological functions related to steroidal saponin biosynthesis.