Morus alba is used as a traditional Chinese medicine due to its various biological activities. Phenylpropanoid metabolism is one of the most important pathways in Morus alba to produce secondary metabolites and response to stress. From the general phenylpropanoid pathway, there are two metabolic branches in M. alba, including flavonoid and lignin biosynthesis, which also play roles in response to stress. However, the dynamic changes between flavonoid and lignin biosynthesis under Botrytis cinerea infection and UV-B stress in M. alba were unclear. To explore the different regulation mode of flavonoid and lignin biosynthesis in M. alba leaves' response to biotic and abiotic stress, a combined proteomic and metabolomic study of M. alba leaves under UV-B stress and B. cinerea infection was performed. The results showed that most of the proteins involved in the lignin and flavonoid biosynthesis pathway were increased under either UV-B stress or B. cinerea infection in M. alba. This was also confirmed by enzyme assays and metabolomics analysis. Additionally, the abundance of proteins involved in the biosynthesis of jasmonic acid was increased after B. cinerea infection. This suggests that both flavonoid and lignin biosynthesis participate in the responses to abiotic and biotic stress in M. alba, but they might be regulated by different hormone signaling.
Keywords: Morus leaves; metabolomics; phenylpropanoid metabolism; proteomics; stress.