Molecular cloning, bioinformatics analysis, and transcriptional profiling of JAZ1 and JAZ2 from Salvia miltiorrhiza.

Production of major effective metabolites, tanshinones and lithospermic acid B (LAB), was dramatically enhanced by exogenous jasmonate (JA) treatment in Salvia miltiorrhiza. However, the molecular mechanism of such metabolic activation in S. miltiorrhiza has not been elucidated yet. Here, we focused on jasmonate ZIM-domain (JAZ) proteins that act as repressors of JA signaling. Open reading frames of two novel genes, SmJAZ1 and SmJAZ2, from S. miltiorrhiza were amplified according to the annotation of S. miltiorrhiza transcriptome. Compared to plant JAZs, SmJAZ1 and SmJAZ2 were clustered into different groups by phylogenetic analysis. Organ expression pattern was studied by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), showing higher transcription level of both genes in stems than roots and leaves. The two SmJAZs responded to methyl jasmonate at early stage and the transcriptional level significantly increased at 4 H. Our experimental results indicate that SmJAZ1 and SmJAZ2 are JA responsive and presented similar expression trend in JA response. The whole research will certainly facilitate further characterization of JAs effect on effective metabolites and help to ultimately achieve high yield of target compounds (tanshinones and LAB).