Jasmonic acid biosynthesis pathway and its functional role in plants

Abstract

Plants encounter various abiotic and biotic stresses including drought, heat, cold, salinity, osmotic stress, fungal infection, herbivore attacks in their natural habitat. In these unavoidable circumstances various phytohormones play crucial roles in regulating plant growth and development (Khan et al., 2019, 2020a, 2020b; Nazir et al., 2019, 2021, 2022; Poo´r et al., 2021). Jasmonic acid (JA) is a lipid-derived phytohormone which acts as a signal as well as regulator in various physiological processes and stress conditions. Methyl ester of JA (MeJA) is the first active jasmonate which was detected and isolated as an odorant from Jasminium grandiflorum flowers (Demole et al., 1962). Among the conjugates of JA, JA-Ile is the most biologically active form (Fonseca et al., 2009). Recently, cis-(1)-12- oxophytodienoic acid (OPDA) an intermediate in the lipoxygenases (LOX) pathway for JA biosynthesis has been shown to be functional signaling molecule instead of JA in lower plants, such as Marchantia polymorpha (liverworts), Physcomitrella patens (moss) and Selaginella martensii (spikemoss) (Ogorodnikova et al., 2015; Stumpe et al., 2010; Yamamoto et al., 2015). Apart from bryophytes, fungus species such as Fusarium oxysporum have JA and/or JA-Ile conjugate (Miersch et al., 1999). Although, JA and its derivatives are distributed among bryophytes and fungi, most of the homologs of JA biosynthesis enzymes are present in major lineages of land plants (Han, 2017). In last decade, studies have been performed in both monocotyledons as well as dicotyledons plants to better understand the JA biosynthesis mechanism. In Arabidopsis, JA biosynthesis mainly occurs in chloroplast, peroxisome and cytoplasm (Ruan et al., 2019). In chloroplast, OPDA is synthesized from unsaturated fatty acid α-linolenic acid (α-LeA) derived from the chloroplast membrane, followed by its conversion into JA in peroxisome. The conversion of JA into different functional and structural metabolites takes place in the cytoplasm. JA and its other derivatives like MeJA and JA-Ile are collectively known as jasmonates.