The genus Oldenlandia encompasses numerous medicinal plants with significant pharmacological potential, yet their tissue-specific metabolic pathways and transcriptional profiles remain understudied. This study combined transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses to compare the differences in five tissues (roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits) between two closely related Oldenlandia species, Oldenlandia diffusa and Oldenlandia corymbosa. Using a widely targeted metabolomics approach based on UPLC-MS/MS, we monitored 1,343 metabolites across 60 samples from the two species. Transcriptome sequencing generated 272.12 Gb and 257.03 Gb of clean data for Oldenlandia diffusa and Oldenlandia corymbosa, respectively, along with 37,644 and 20,825 annotated genes. Comparative analysis revealed numerous differentially expressed genes, whose diverse functions were elucidated through GO enrichment. This comprehensive dataset provides a valuable resource for further investigating the phenotypic traits and metabolic mechanisms underlying the pharmacological activities of these medicinally important Oldenlandia species.
Chen et al. (2026) studied this question.