GO and rare medicinal plants

In a new open access publication, Ma et al. examine the rare wild liquorice Glycyrrhiza squamulose. Liquorice is already known to have medicinal uses ranging from relieving coughs to potentially having anticancer and cardioprotective qualities. Glycyrrhiza squamulose has been understudied and is scarce in the wild. In this paper, Ma et al. use GO as well as other methods to evaluate the potential use of Glycyrrhiza squamulose- and provide evidence for the importance of preserving this rare plant.

Interestingly, samples from roots, stems, and leaves showed differences in expressed genes between G. squamulose and G. uralensis; here is Fic 3C from the publication showing GO term enrichment results for genes from the root:

Read the open access paper here: Combining metabolomics and transcriptomics to reveal the potential medicinal value of rare species Glycyrrhiza squamulose