Caulophyllum is a small genus of perennial herb in the family Berberidaceae. The genus contains only three species that are grown in wild in eastern Asia and North America. Of the three species identified, C. thalictroides and C. giganteum, are natives in Eastern North America, and C. robustum is native to North-East Asia including China, Korea, and Japan (Loconte and Estes 1989). Common name Caulophyllum species is blue cohosh for the North American natives who used it for treatment of amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, and rheumatic symptoms (Hutchens 1992). The extracts are still being used for midwives to aid labor in United States. Root powers or liquid extracts from blue cohosh are sold as dietary supplements as labeled as a woman’s tonic or simply herbal supplement (Satchithanandam et al. 2008). However, safety concerns have arisen with specific constituents of blue cohosh to humans and animals, especially during pregnancy (Rader and Pawar 2013).

  The three species in the genus Caulophyllum are highly similar in morphology and plant types so that C. robustum was regarded as a subspecies of North American species (Jhoo et al. 2001). The C. robustum is an endemic perennial bush species in north China, Korea, Japan, and east Siberia of Russia including Sakhalin. It grows in wild, flowers in June – July, and bears blue and round fruits of 6-7 mm in diameter (http://www.nature.co.kr). It was known as Hong Mao Qi in Chinese and extracts from roots and rhizomes have been used widely as folk medicine in China. It was used for treatment of menstrual irregularity and stomach ache (Xia et al. 2014). Various phytochemicals were known in the extracts of Caulophyllum plants and the bioactivities of the Caulophyllum species include anti-inflammation (Lee et al. 2012; Qin et al. 2018), antibacterial activity (Xia et al. 2014), and anti-rheumatism (Lü et al. (2013). It has also been used to easy childbirth (Ali and Khan 2008). The known phytochemicals from the Caulophyllum were alkaloids, triterpene saponins, fatty acids and sterols (Reviewed in Rader and Pawar 2013; Xia et al. 2014, references therein).

  Benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs) are very diverse to contain approximately 2,500 molecules, including morphine, codeine, sanguinarine, and papaverine etc (Singla et al. 2010; Farrow et al. 2012). However, BIAs have been identified in only restricted a few plant families, including Berberidiceae, Papaveraceae and Ranunculaceae in Ranuculales, Fabaceae in Fabales, Magonoliaceae in Magnoliales (Liscombe et al. 2005; Farrow et al. 2012), Nelumbonaceae in Proteales (Menendez-Perdomo 2018). Berberine is one of the organic molecules in heteropentacyclic compounds in the protoberberine group (http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.gov/compound/2353). Pharmacological activities of berberine are highly diverse such as in the treatments of Type II diabetes, various types of cancer, vascular diseases, oral diseases, various metabolic syndromes and more (Reviewed in Imenshahidi and Hosseinzadeh 2018, references therein).

  Many alkaloids have been reported from the genus Caulophyllum. Li et al. (2007) reported eleven alkaloid molecules from C. robustum by binary chromatographic fingerprints of high performance liquid chromatography/diode array detector and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis. In a review of phytochemicals in genus Caulophyllum, Xia et al. (2014) listed 22 alkaloid molecules, including N-methylcytosine, lupinine, taspine, several types of caulophyllines etc., from the extracts from roots and rhizomes. However, no report is available for the berberine in the genus Caulophyllum. We found berberine from the leaf, stem and roots of the C. robustum. We carried out transcriptome analysis in C. robustum. The current report contains characterization of berberine synthesis genes in C. robustum and comparative analysis of those genes with genes in other berberine producing plants.