R2R3-MYB proteins are involved in the primary and secondary metabolism, developmental processes and the responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. Little is known about the functions of R2R3-MYB proteins in Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi which is a traditional Chinese medicinal plants. In this study, the function of a S. baicalensis R2R3-MYB protein, SbMYB8, was investigated. SbMYB8 had similar expression pattern with SbC4H and SbCHS in ABA-treated S. baicalensis, indicating that SbMYB8 might be involved in the flavonoid metabolism. SbMYB8 protein could bind to the GmMYB92 BS3 sequence of SbCHS promoter region, regulating the expression of SbCHS. The SbMYB8 protein was localized to the nucleus where it activated transcription. The transgenic tobacco plants over-expressing SbMYB8 had higher caffeoylquinic acid contents, compared to that in wild type plants. Overexpression of SbMYB8 also changed the expression level of some flavonoid biosynthesis-related genes. It was found that overexpression of SbMYB8 can improve stress tolerance of transgenic plants, and can alter the activity and expression levels of some antioxidant enzymes. These results indicate that SbMYB8 plays important roles in flavonoid biosynthesis and stress tolerance of plant.
The S-adenosyl-l-methionine-dependent methyltransferase superfamily plays important roles in plant development. The buds of Lonicera japonica are used as Chinese medical material and foods; chinese people began domesticating L. japonica thousands of years ago. Compared to the wild species, L. japonica var. chinensis, L. japonica gives a higher yield of buds, a fact closely related to positive selection over the long cultivation period of the species. Genome duplications, which are always detected in the domestic species, are the source of the multifaceted roles of the functional gene. In this paper, we investigated the evolution of the SAMe genes in L. japonica and L. japonica var. chinensis and further analyzed the roles of the duplicated genes among special groups. The SAMe protein sequences were subdivided into three clusters and several subgroups. The difference in transcriptional levels of the duplicated genes showed that seven SAMe genes could be related to the differences between the wild and the domesticated varieties. The sequence diversity of seven SAMe genes was also analyzed, and the results showed that different gene expression levels between the varieties could not be related to amino acid variation. The transcriptional level of duplicated PEAMT could be regulated through the SAM–SAH cycle.
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