Integrated Transcriptomics and Proteomics to Reveal Regulation Mechanism and Evolution of on Tanshinone Biosynthesis in and .

Tanshinones found in species are the main active compounds for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, but their contents are hugely different in different species. For example, tanshinone IIA content in Diels f. Stib. is about 49 times higher than that in Bunge. The molecular mechanism responsible for this phenomenon remains largely unknown. To address this, we performed comparative transcriptomic and proteomic analyses of and . A total of 296 genes in and 125 genes in were highly expressed at both the transcriptional and proteome levels, including hormone signal regulation, fungus response genes, transcription factors, and CYP450. Among these differentially expressed genes, the expression of was particularly high in . Overexpression of in could significantly increase the content of tanshinone I and tanshinone IIA, which were 11.09 and 33.37 times of the control, respectively. Moreover, had a strong regulatory effect, elevating the expression levels of tanshinone pathway genes such as , and . For the WRKY family, 79 s were originally obtained and classified into three main groups. Collinearity analysis indicated a more specific extension of gene family in genus. In 55 species, only 37 species contained the sequence, and high expression in some L. species was often accompanied by high tanshinone accumulation. The above results suggest that is a highly effective regulator of tanshinone accumulation and may be a key factor resulting in high tanshinone accumulation in .