Salt stress changes chemical composition in Limonium bicolor (Bag.) Kuntze, a medicinal halophytic plant

In order to understand the response mode of the main chemical compounds to salt-stress, the chemical compositions in leaves and roots of NaCl-treated Limonium bicolor (Bag.) Kuntze, a medicinal halophytic plant with efficacy of blood enriching and hemostasis, were determined by UPLC-Q-TOF-MS2 and HPLC, and compared to the control, the expression analysis of chalcone synthase (CHS) gene under salt-stress was also carried out by quantitative real-time PCR. As a result, eleven chemical constituents including triethyl citrate (1), gallic acid (2), vanillic acid (3), vanillic acid derivative (4), vanillic acid-hexose (5), N-(2-carboxyethyl) iminodiacetic acid (6), epigallocatechin gallate (7), myricetin-3-O-glucosideigalactoside (8), myricetin-3-O-rhamnoside (9), quercetin-3-O-rhamnoside (10) and myricetin-3-O-(O-galloyl)-rhamnoside (11) were identified, and showed that NaCI-stress can induce accumulation changes of these compounds. Among them, compound 9 showed the highest abundance both in leaf and root of L. bicolor, which can be markedly enhanced in root by NaCI-stress. CHS gene was sensitive to NaCI-stress, its expression level was up-regulated in leaf while inhibited in root by NaCIstress. These results will provide references for further research of the directional induction of medicinal active ingredients and the salt response mechanism of secondary metabolism in medicinal halophyte L bicolor. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.