Seed microbiome includes special endophytic or epiphytic microbial taxa associated with seeds, which affects seed germination, plant growth, and health. Here, we analyzed the core microbiome of 21 Salvia miltiorrhiza seeds from seven different geographic origins using 16S rDNA and ITS amplicon sequencing, followed by bioinformatics analysis. The whole bacterial microbiome was classified into 17 microbial phyla and 39 classes. Gammaproteobacteria (67.6%), Alphaproteobacteria (15.6%), Betaproteobacteria (2.6%), Sphingobacteria (5.0%), Bacilli (4.6%), and Actinobacteria (2.9%) belonged to the core bacterial microbiome. Dothideomycetes comprised 94% of core fungal microbiome in S. miltiorrhiza seeds, and another two dominant classes were Leotiomycetes (3.0%) and Tremellomycetes (2.0%). We found that terpenoid backbone biosynthesis, degradation of limonene, pinene, and geraniol, and prenyltransferases, were overrepresented in the core bacterial microbiome using phylogenetic examination of communities by reconstruction of unobserved states (PICRUSt) software. We also found that the bacterial genera Pantoea, Pseudomonas, and Sphingomonas were enriched core taxa and overlapped among S. miltiorrhiza, maize, bean, and rice, while a fungal genus, Alternaria, was shared within S. miltiorrhiza, bean, and Brassicaceae families. These findings highlight that seed-associated microbiomeis an important component of plant microbiomes, which may be a gene reservoir for secondary metabolism in medicinal plants.

Phenolic acids and tanshinones are two major bioactive components in Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. A novel endogenous R2R3-MYB transcription factor, SmMYB36, was identified in this research. This transcript factor can simultaneously influence the content of two types of components in SmMYB36 overexpression hairy roots. SmMYB36 was mainly localized in the nucleus of onion epidermis and it has transactivation activity. The overexpression of SmMYB36 promoted tanshinone accumulation but inhibited phenolic acid and flavonoid biosynthesis in Salvia miltiorrhiza hairy roots. The altered metabolite content was due to changed metabolic flow which was regulated by transcript expression of metabolic pathway genes. The gene transcription levels of the phenylpropanoid general pathway, tyrosine derived pathway, methylerythritol phosphate pathway and downstream tanshinone biosynthetic pathway changed significantly due to the overexpression of SmMYB36. The wide distribution of MYB binding elements (MBS, MRE, MBSI and MBSII) and electrophoretic mobility shift assay results indicated that SmMYB36 may be an effective tool to regulate metabolic flux shifts.

Jasmonates (JAs) are important plant hormones that regulate a variety of plant development and defense processes, including secondary metabolite biosynthesis. The JASMONATE ZIM DOMAIN (JAZ) proteins act as negative regulators in the JA signaling pathways of plants. We first verified that methyl jasmonate (MeJA) enhanced the accumulation of both salvianolic acids and tanshinones in Salvia miltiorrhiza (Danshen) hairy roots by inducing the expression of their biosynthetic pathway genes. Nine JAZ genes were cloned from Danshen and their expression levels in hairy roots were all elevated by treatment with MeJA. When analyzed in detail, however, SmJAZ8 showed the strongest expression in the induced hairy roots. Overexpression or RNA interference of SmJAZ8 deregulated or up-regulated the yields of salvianolic acids and tanshinones in the MeJA-induced transgenic hairy roots, respectively, and the transcription factors and biosynthetic pathway genes showed an expression pattern that mirrored the production of the compounds. Genetic transformation of SmJAZ8 altered the expression of other SmJAZ genes, suggesting evidence of crosstalk occurring in JAZ-regulated secondary metabolism. Furthermore, the transcriptome analysis revealed a primary–secondary metabolism balance that was regulated by SmJAZ8. Altogether, we propose a novel role for SmJAZ8 as a negative feedback loop controller in the JA-induced biosynthesis of salvianolic acids and tanshinones.

Salvia miltiorrhiza has been widely used in the treatment of coronary heart disease. Tanshinones, a group of diterpenoids are the main active ingredients in S. miltiorrhiza. Two biosynthetic pathways were involved in tanshinone biosynthesis in plants: the mevalonate (MVA) pathway in the cytosol and the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway in the plastids. The 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) is the rate-limiting enzyme of the MVA pathway. The 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase (DXS) and 1-deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate reductoisomerase (DXR) are the key enzymes of the MEP pathway. In this study, to reveal roles of the MVA and the MEP pathways in cell growth and tanshinone production of S. miltiorrhiza hairy roots, specific inhibitors of the two pathways were used to perturb metabolic flux. The results showed that the MVA pathway inhibitor (mevinolin, MEV) was more powerful to inhibit the hairy root growth than the MEP pathway inhibitor (fosmidomycin, FOS). Both MEV and FOS could significantly inhibit tanshinone production, and FOS was more powerful than MEV. An inhibitor (D, L-glyceraldehyde, DLG) of IPP translocation strengthened the inhibitory effects of MEV and FOS on cell growth and tanshinone production. Application of MEV resulted in a significant increase of expression and activity of HMGR at 6 h, and a sharp decrease at 24 h. FOS treatment resulted in a significant increase of DXR and DXS expression and DXS activity at 6 h, and a sharp decrease at 24 h. Our results suggested that the MVA pathway played a major role in cell growth, while the MEP pathway was the main source of tanshinone biosynthesis. Both cell growth and tanshinone production could partially depend on the crosstalk between the two pathways. The inhibitor-mediated changes of tanshinone production were reflected in transcript and protein levels of genes of the MVA and MEP pathways.