In silico Characterization of UGT74G1 Protein in Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni Accession MS007

Due to its low-calorie property, Stevia rebaudiana is being promoted as an alternative sweetener for diabetic and obese patients. The steady demand in the market for high-quality stevia extracts presents a challenge for the enhanced production of steviol glycosides that are safe for human consumption. This study characterized the structure and content of the gene involved in the production of UGT74G1 protein for Stevia rebaudiana accession MS007 through in silico analysis using a transcriptome dataset of stevia MS007. Homologous search using BLASTp shows high similarity to Q6VAA6 RecName: Full=UDP-glycosyltransferase 74G1 (S. rebaudiana) as the top hit sequence. InterPro family and domain protein motif search revealed UDP-glucuronosyl/UDP-glucosyltransferase (IPR002213) and UDP-glycosyltransferase family, conserved site (IPR035595). The phylogenetic tree construction was done by selecting 14 out of 102 protein sequences from BLASTp search. The phylogenetic analysis revealed a high value of bootstrapping, which was 100, indicating the high similarity between UGT74G1 (Q6VAA6.1 and Cluster-31069.45201) in S. rebaudiana. ProtParam ExPASy, PSIPRED, and Phyre2 computed the primary, secondary, and tertiary structures for UGT74G1 protein. The UGT74G1 predicted tertiary structure scored 100.0% confidence by the single highest scoring template and coverage of 96%. The model has dimensions (Å) of X: 57.609, Y: 70.386, and Z: 58.351. Outcomes of this research will help enhance understanding UDP-glycosyltransferase 74G1 (S. rebaudiana MS007) characteristics and enhance target identification processes to improve understanding of protein-protein interaction in S. rebaudiana MS007.