Effect of Abiotic and Biotic Elicitors on Growth and Alkaloid Accumulation of Lycoris chinensis Seedlings

Abstract

Three-month-old seedlings of Lycoris chinensis were treated with biotic and abiotic elicitors: yeast elicitor (YE), methyl jasmonate (MJ), salicylic acid (SA), and sodium nitroprusside as NO donator (NO). We have shown that the addition of MJ and NO promotes the accumulation of galanthamine in these seedlings. The effect of these elicitors on the growth of the seedlings, as well as on the amount of the alkaloids accumulated in the seedlings was studied. The results showed that, in general, high doses of MJ and SA had a negative effect on the growth of the seedlings, while appropriate doses of NO and YE had a positive effect on the growth of the seedlings. It was remarkable that the addition of MJ, NO, and YE can promote galanthamine accumulation in seedlings. The accumulation was higher in treatments at higher concentrations of NO (100 µM), where the release of galanthamine was 1.72-fold higher than that of the control at the 10 th day of culture. The highest values of lycorine were obtained in seedlings treated with YE at a concentration of 0.01 g/l and by the 10 th day of culture; the level was 1.38 times of the control.

Transcriptome Analysis of Secondary Metabolism Pathway, Transcription Factors, and Transporters in Response to Methyl Jasmonate in Lycoris aurea

“…MeJA treatment triggers the majority of secondary metabolites biosynthesis (i.e., terpenoids, phenylpropanoids, and alkaloids) through an extensive transcriptional reprogramming (Zhao et al, 2005; Pauwels et al, 2009; De Geyter et al, 2012; Misra et al, 2014). Previously, we also showed that exogenous MeJA application accelerated the Amaryllidaceae alkaloids accumulation in L. chinensis seedlings (Mu et al, 2009). Here, by using trancriptome sequencing, we investigated the MeJA-responsive transcriptional changes, and identified 4,165 DEGs (including 2,281 up-regulated and 1,884 down-regulated) between Con and MJ100 samples in L. aurea (Figure 5C).…”

“…The elicitors derived from bacteria, fungi, viral pathogens and even plants also contribute to the variability in plant secondary metabolism (Berenbaum, 1995; Verma and Shukla, 2015). Previously, we showed that exogenous methyl jasmonate (MeJA) application accelerated the Amaryllidaceae alkaloids accumulation in Lycoris chinensis seedlings (Mu et al, 2009). In this study, by using elicitor MeJA treatment, the global expression patterns of genes involved in metabolism, particularly secondary metabolism, transcription factors, and transporter proteins were identified.…”

De novo Sequence Assembly and Characterization of Lycoris aurea Transcriptome Using GS FLX Titanium Platform of 454 Pyrosequencing

“…It has been reported that in some plants of Amaryllidaceae family, the improved production of galanthamine was examined in MeJA-treated tissues and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC)-treated somatic embryos respectively [65,66]. And in our previous study, we also found that the content of galanthamine in Lycoris chinensis and Lycoris radiata seedlings would have been affected after treating with sodium nitroprusside (SNP), salicylic acid (SA), or MeJA [67,68]. For the purpose of improving mRNA abundance of genes related to Amaryllidaceae alkaloids biosynthesis, the leaves were treated with those abiotic elicitors for RNA extraction.…”

Elicitation of galanthamine production by leucojum aestivum shoots grown in temporary immersion system

“…Only the percentage of DW referred to FW of the shoots treated with 100 µM MJ (11.4%) was significantly higher than that of the shoots growing in the other culture media, according to the two statistical tests applied. In two other amaryllidaceous plants, Narcissus confusus shoot‐clumps and Lycoris chinensis seedlings, high doses of MJ affected negatively their growth.…”

“…MJ elicitation of the Amaryllidaceae species Narcissus confusus (shoot‐clumps) and Lycoris chinensis (seedlings) successfully enhanced the production of GAL . However, to our knowledge, there are no references to the elicitation of alkaloid biosynthesis in in vitro cultures of L. aestivum .…”