The LrAN2-LrSOS3 regulatory module enhances salt tolerance and anthocyanin accumulation in Lycium ruthenicum

Abiotic stress-induced anthocyanin accumulation enhances stress tolerance and improves the quality of fruits, vegetables, and other horticultural crops. The promising natural blue colorant petanin, mainly derived from the wild resource of Lycium ruthenicum fruit, has attracted considerable attention for food industrial applications. Metabolic engineering of petanin in L. ruthenicum callus (LRC) provides a promising strategy to increase petanin yield in our previous study. To further enhance the petanin yield, LRC overexpressing LrAN2 (OE- LrAN2 ) were treated by abiotic stresses like saline and/or alkaline stress, which were analyzed by multi-omics. Our results suggest that abiotic stresses significantly enhance the anthocyanin yield, and that sugars, amino acids, organic acids, and proteins related to anthocyanin biosynthesis, hormone, and redox homeostasis are enriched to cope with different abiotic stresses. The LrAN2 - LrSOS3 module was well elucidated for OE- LrAN2 LRC, enhancing anthocyanin yield, thereby making it tolerant to abiotic stresses. Consequently, controlled abiotic stress can be leveraged to boost the production of acylated anthocyanins in OE- LrAN2 LRC for plant cell factory purposes.