Targeted mutagenesis of CYP76AK2 and CYP76AK3 in Salvia miltiorrhiza reveals their roles in tanshinones biosynthetic pathway.

Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, belonging to Lamiaceae family, is one of the most important Chinese medicinal herbs. The dried roots, also called Danshen in Chinese, are usually used in the formula of Chinese traditional medicine due to the bioactive constituents known as phenolic acids and tanshinones, which are a group of abietane nor-diterpenoid quinone natural products. Cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYPs) usually play crucial roles in terpenoids synthesis, especially in hydroxylation processes.

Molecular Characterization and Overexpression of Increases the Production of Phenolic Acids in .

Jasmonic acid (JA) carboxyl methyltransferase (JMT), a key enzyme in jasmonate-regulated plant responses, may be involved in plant defense and development by methylating JA to MeJA, thus influencing the concentrations of MeJA in plant. In this study, we isolated the gene from , an important medicinal plant widely used to treat cardiovascular disease. We present a genetic manipulation strategy to enhance the production of phenolic acids by overexpresion in .

SmMYB111 Is a Key Factor to Phenolic Acid Biosynthesis and Interacts with Both SmTTG1 and SmbHLH51 in Salvia miltiorrhiza.

Transcription factors that include myeloblastosis (MYB), basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), and tryptophan-aspartic acid (WD)-repeat protein often form a ternary complex to regulate the phenylpropanoid pathway. However, only a few MYB and bHLH members involved in the biosynthesis of salvianolic acid B (Sal B) have been reported, and little is known about Sal B pathway regulation by the WD40 protein transparent testa glabra 1 (TTG1)-dependent transcriptional complexes in Salvia miltiorrhiza. We isolated SmTTG1 from that species for detailed functional characterization.

Selection and Validation of Reference Genes for Quantitative Real-time PCR in Gentiana macrophylla.

Real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR or qPCR) has been extensively applied for analyzing gene expression because of its accuracy, sensitivity, and high throughput. However, the unsuitable choice of reference gene(s) can lead to a misinterpretation of results. We evaluated the stability of 10 candidates - five traditional housekeeping genes (UBC21, GAPC2, EF-1α4, UBQ10, and UBC10) and five novel genes (SAND1, FBOX, PTB1, ARP, and Expressed1) - using the transcriptome data of Gentiana macrophylla.

Ergosterol reverses multidrug resistance in SGC7901/Adr cells.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major obstacle in the chemotherapeutic treatment of tumors. Elevated expression of the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) transporter is associated with MDR and responsible for the resistance of tumor cells against a variety of anticancer drugs. In this study, the reversal effect of ergosterol (Erg) on SGC7901/Adr cells was investigated.