Dujun Wang¹, Jie Wang¹, Jingying Zheng¹, Yueling Shang¹, Fengwei Li¹, Runqiang Yang², Chunyin Zhang³, Yangjie Lu⁴, Xiaohong Yu^1,

The effects of CaCl₂ and abscisic acid (ABA) on the sprouts growth, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and flavonoids accumulation in germinated Salicornia bigelovii Torr. were investigated under NaCl stress. Results showed that the content of GABA and flavonoids increased by 1.20 and 1.19 times under 5 mM CaCl₂ treatment compared with the control group. The key enzymes including glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) and diamine oxidase (DAO), phenylalanine ammonolyses (PAL), cinnamicacid-4-hydroxylase (C4H) and 4-coumarate: CoA ligase (4CL) were increased significantly (p<0.05). After being treated with 50 μM ABA under 7.5 g•L^-1 NaCl, S. bigelovii had the higher content of GABA (398.26 mg•100g^-1) and flavonoids (36.90 mg•g^-1) than control group (p<0.05). The mRNA levels of key enzymes were consistent with GABA and flavonoids accumulation. Our results provided the basic for further studies key enzyme genes affect the GABA and flavonoids accumulation and laid the foundation for high value utilization of S. bigelovii.

Salicornia bigelovii Torr, combined stress, γ-aminobutyric acid, flavonoids, key enzyme gene