Abstract
Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is a common Chinese herbal medicine, and its major active ingredients are phenolic acids and tanshinones, which are widely used to treat vascular diseases. However, the wild form of S. miltiorrhiza possess low levels of these important pharmaceutical agents; thus, improving their levels is an active area of research. Transcription factors, which promote or inhibit the expressions of multiple genes involved in one or more biosynthetic pathways, are powerful tools for controlling gene expression in biosynthesis. Several families of transcription factors have been reported to participate in regulating phenolic acid and tanshinone biosynthesis and influence their accumulation. This review summarizes the current status in this field, with focus on the transcription factors which have been identified in recent years and their functions in the biosynthetic regulation of phenolic acids and tanshinones. Otherwise, the new insight for further research is provided. Finally, the application of the biosynthetic regulation of active ingredients by the transcription factors in S. miltiorrhiza are discussed, and new insights for future research are explored.
Highlights
Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is a small genome size plant; it makes it a model medical plant to study (Lu et al, 2020)
Eight bHLH TFs have been reported to participate in the regulation of biosynthesis of active ingredients in S. miltiorrhiza, namely, SmMYC2, SmMYC2a, SmMYC2b, SmbHLH51, SmbHLH10, SmbHLH148, SmbHLH3, and SmbHLH37
SmbHLH10 can directly bind to G-box within promotors of genes in the pathway, activate the expression of genes, and up-regulate tanshinones biosynthesis (Xing et al, 2018b)
Summary
Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge is a small genome size plant; it makes it a model medical plant to study (Lu et al, 2020). We review the biosynthetic pathways of phenolic acids and tanshinones in S. miltiorrhiza, with particular focus on the TFs that regulate the pathways, and highlight effective research approaches for improving the active ingredients of medical plants. TFs REGULATING BIOSYNTHESIS OF PHENOLIC ACID AND TANSHINONE
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