1. Introduction
The Pará rubber tree (
Hevea brasiliensis, Hevea) has been the sole source of natural rubber for a long time. These trees are mostly cultivated in countries of the Asia-Pacific region; therefore, the natural rubber used worldwide is primarily produced here [
1]. However, this restricted production gives rise to risk factors that unbalance the supply of natural rubber. Plant diseases such as South American leaf blight can exterminate rubber trees [
2]. Moreover, climate change has threatened the survival of endemic rubber trees, such as those growing in the tropics [
3,
4]. In addition, the increasing demand for natural rubber worldwide has rendered adequate supply even more difficult [
5,
6].
The Russian dandelion (
Taraxacum kok-saghyz, TKS), which has lately been called the rubber dandelion, has been studied as a major alternative crop since World War II, because it can produce natural rubber of good quality [
1,
4]. Although the rubber polymer of TKS is longer than that of Hevea, its rubber productivity per acre is lower [
1,
7,
8]. With the improvement of its rubber productivity, TKS may be utilized as an alternative rubber crop to stabilize the global supply of natural rubber [
1,
9].
Both Hevea and TKS have specialized natural rubber-producing tissues called laticifers [
4]. Laticifers store latex [
10] with numerous particles with a lipid monolayer structure called rubber particles, which store natural rubber [
11]. The rubber particles isolated from latex and washed with buffer are called washed rubber particles [
12]. Many proteins are attached to the lipid membrane of rubber particles, and some of these proteins are involved in natural rubber synthesis.
The biosynthesis of natural rubber has been suggested to be catalyzed by rubber transferase complex bound to rubber particles [
1]. The identification of a rubber transferase complex including
cis-prenyltransferase would help to elucidate the mechanism of natural rubber synthesis, and extensive research on this topic is underway worldwide [
13,
14,
15]. In the studies, to confirm their activity, proteins attached to the rubber particles were washed; candidate proteins were recombined with washed rubber particles; and the rubber synthesis capacity of the recombined rubber particles was measured. However, the major shortcoming of functional studies is the low reliability of experimental results regarding a specific candidate rubber transferase complex, as all proteins cannot completely be washed from the rubber particles [
13,
15]. Therefore, clean rubber particles without any proteins or with only structural proteins are required to obtain accurate results. In this context, the knowledge of lipid composition of rubber particles in natural rubber-producing plants would aid the synthesis of artificial rubber particles, which would further help identify rubber transferase complex and rubber biosynthesis-related proteins. Moreover, artificial rubber particles may be used for in vitro rubber polymer biosynthesis in the future.
There have been several studies on the lipid composition of latex and rubber particles in Hevea; however, most studies focused on processed latex or did not take the problem of rapid degradation of compound lipids into account [
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22]. Moreover, little is known about the lipid composition of fresh latex and rubber particles in TKS [
23]. Therefore, in this study, the compound lipid compositions of fresh latex and rubber particles in Hevea, as well as TKS, were analyzed together after addressing the problem of rapid lipid degradation and compared with previous reports obtained from mostly Hevea. In addition, compound lipid compositions of fresh latex and rubber particles were compared between Hevea and TKS. The detected compound lipids included phospholipids and galactolipids, which are the major lipid components of intracellular membranes.
3. Discussion
Latex contains numerous rubber particles, whose membranes comprise a lipid monolayer. Phospholipids constitute the skeleton of the cellular lipid membrane [
29]. Accordingly, all samples in the present study showed a greatly higher percentage of phospholipids than that of galactolipids. Typically, PCs and PEs are the most abundant phospholipids in the cellular lipid membranes of plants [
30]. Of note, however, PCs accounted for a markedly high percentage of total phospholipids in rubber particles in the latex of rubber tree and rubber dandelion in the present study (
Table 6).
In previous studies, PCs and LPCs were reported to be the major phospholipid classes detected in Hevea latex samples [
21,
27] and PCs in
T. brevicorniculatum rubber particles [
23]. LPCs may be generated as byproducts due to the activities of PLA, possibly during tapping and extraction processes [
21]. During the processing of Hevea latex, phospholipids are degraded more rapidly than glycolipids, mainly galactolipids [
21]. Thus, during the storage of Hevea latex or rubber particles, the percentage of phospholipids is initially higher but subsequently lower than that of glycolipids [
21,
25]. Higher amounts of glycolipids than those of phospholipids have also been reported in other studies [
17,
18,
24]. To the best of our knowledge, however, no previous study has addressed the prevention of lipid degradation during rubber particle isolation.
Contrary to the previous reports that LPCs and PAs showed somewhat higher amounts [
21], these two lipids were detected at trace amounts in the present study. This result may be attributed to the suppression of PLA-mediated phospholipid degradation during the extraction of latex and rubber particles; this was achieved by adding 330 mM sorbitol and PLA inhibitors plus 0.5% Triton-X to the latex collecting buffer and applying the modified Folch’s protocol using shortened extraction time and small amounts of samples.
Both Hevea and TKS are natural rubber-producing plants; however, climatic conditions in regions where they grow vary widely [
4]. Unlike rubber dandelions that grow in a continental climate [
31,
32], Hevea mainly grows in tropical regions including Southeast Asia, where both temperature and rain are high [
33]. Therefore, cells and tissues of Hevea that are exposed to a hot environment may be differently adapted to tolerate stress, and natural rubber production is presumed to be one of such adaptations. In fact, there is evidence that Hevea uses natural rubber to protect itself from hot and wet environments [
34]. Rubber particles have been speculated to be synthesized by intracellular endoplasmic reticulum [
35]. Rubber particles are the sites where natural rubber is synthesized and stored in latex. Lipid composition of rubber particles may be affected by the intracellular environment that is optimized for stress resistance. The higher proportions of galactolipids, particularly DGDGs, in Hevea than in TKS indicate that galactolipids, such as DGDGs, likely play important roles in thermo-tolerance, as suggested in a previous study [
36].
The number of double bonds in lipids affects the fluidity of the lipid membrane. Changes in the number of double bonds alter the membrane structure. Unsaturated lipids having one or multiple double bonds result in increased membrane fluidity [
37]. Plants need to adapt to the surrounding environment for survival, and appropriate changes in membrane fluidity are essential for adaptation to hot or cold environments [
38]. According to previous studies, exposure to extreme temperatures increased the degree of unsaturation of lipids constituting the membrane, making it more fluid [
39,
40]. Therefore, the difference in lipid composition in terms of the number of carbons and double bonds between Hevea and TKS plants is considered to reflect the adaptive strategies of plants to the environments they inhabit.
4. Materials and Methods
General chemicals and compound lipids were purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO, USA), unless otherwise stated.
4.1. Collection of Latex and Preparation of Washed Rubber Particles
Latex was collected from Pará rubber tree and rubber dandelion (USDA accession no. W6 35166), which were grown in a greenhouse located at KRIBB, Daejeon, South Korea. Pará rubber tree was scratched with a knife [
12] and ~100 μL of latex was collected with a pipette. The thick part between the leaf and roots of rubber dandelion was cut, and ~100 μL of flowing latex was collected from three different plants. The collected latex samples were immediately added to 10× volume of chloroform/MeOH (2:1) containing 0.002% BTH and subjected to lipid extraction, as described below.
To prepare washed rubber particles, 100 μL of latex was collected in 1.5 mL of ice-chilled buffer solution [10 mM sodium phosphate (pH 7.5), 1 mM EGTA, 2 mM DTT, and 330 mM sorbitol] in a 2 mL Eppendorf tube. After centrifugation of the latex-suspended buffer at 27,000×
g for 15 min at 4 °C, the rubber particles floating in the supernatant were transferred to a new Eppendorf tube and suspended in 1 mL of ice-chilled fresh buffer. The process was repeated twice, resulting in the preparation of washed rubber particles. If necessary, to suppress PLA activity, 0.5% Triton-X and a mixture of PLA inhibitors (3 µM manoalide, ONO, BEL, and AACOCF3) [
41] were added to the latex collection solution.
4.2. Lipid Extraction from Latex and Rubber Particles
Unless otherwise stated, the lipids were extracted according to Folch’s protocol [
42] with some modifications. Briefly, the latex and rubber particle suspensions were added to 10× volume of chloroform/MeOH (2:1) containing 0.002% BTH. The mixtures were vortexed vigorously for 5 min, and 1/10th volume of 2M KCl was added. The mixture was vortexed again and then centrifuged at 6,500×
g for 5 min at 4 °C. The bottom phase (chloroform and MeOH) was transferred into a new tube and dried with N
2 gas.
4.3. HPLC-ELSD Analysis
The extracted lipids were first analyzed using HPLC-ELSD to monitor phospholipid degradation. Dried lipid extracts were dissolved in chloroform/methanol (95:5) and injected into a UHPLC system (Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan) equipped with a Rheodyne manual injector with a 20 μL sample loop and a silica column [Shim-pack CLC-SIL (M); 4.6 mm i.d. × 15 cm, Shimadzu]. Chromatographic separation was performed using a linear binary gradient according to the following scheme: t0: 100%A, 0%B; t7: 80%A, 20%B; t12: 75%A, 25%B; t17: 75%A, 25%B; t22: 100%A, 0%B, and t27: stop. The total chromatographic run time was 32 min per sample, including a 27 min analysis and 5 min re-equilibration. Eluent A comprised chloroform/methanol/ammonium hydroxide (800:225:5), and eluent B comprised methanol/water/ammonium hydroxide (800:190:5). The flow rate of the eluent was 1.0 mL·min−1. An evaporative light scattering detector (SEDEX Model 80 LT-ELSD) was used; the pressure of nebulizer nitrogen gas was maintained at 350 kPa, and the drift tube temperature was set at 50 °C.
4.4. Lipid Analysis Using ESI-MS/MS
After quality check, the lipid samples that did not show evident phospholipid degradation were quantified using ESI-MS/MS at the Kansas Lipidomics Research Center, Kansas State University [
43], which is supported by NSF, Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation, K-IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence of NIH, and Kansas State University. Unfractionated extracts were directly injected into a mass spectrometer and subjected to ESI-MS/MS in the precursor and neutral loss scanning modes to identify polar lipids. The identified lipids were quantified with reference to two internal standards for the different lipid classes using a correction curve and expressed in mol% as previously described [
43].
4.5. Statistical Analysis
All data are expressed as the mean value of at least three biological replicates. The data were analyzed using t-tests, and differences were considered statistically significant for a p-value of < 0.05.