Investigation of the methyl jasmonate effect on the Taxol biosynthetic pathway through the expression of DBAT, BAPT, and TS genes

Taxol is a valuable drug in the treatment of many cancers, which is extracted from plant sources, especially the Taxus plant. The restriction of plant resources has led to new solutions for increasing plant production of taxol. One of these solutions is the use of elicitors such as methyl jasmonate. In the present study, the effect of the elicitation by methyl jasmonate on the expression of genes involved in taxol biosynthesis was evaluated. For this purpose, taxus leaf and stem explants of Taxus baccata were elicited with concentrations of 0, 100, 250, and 500 μM methyl jasmonate for 48 and 72 hours, and then the expression of DBAT, BAPT, and TS genes in the different explants, concentrations, and treatment times were investigated using Real-time PCR method. The findings showed that the expression of the three genes under the elicitation of methyl jasmonate increased in the leaves and stems of the taxus plant, and their expression was higher in the leaves than in the stems. The effect of elicitation time was shown that increasing the elicitation time from 48 to 72 hours increases the expression of the three genes. Furthermore, the largest increase in expression for all three genes was observed at 250 μM methyl jasmonate. The results showed that methyl jasmonate can increase the production of taxol in Taxus baccata by increasing the expression of some genes involved in the taxol biosynthesis pathway.