Spraying methyl jasmonate before harvesting can significantly increase the content of icariin in an important leaf medicinal herb, Epimedium sagittatum, by activating the expression of genes involved in flavonoid synthesis pathways

A total of 41,468 Unigenes were obtained through transcriptome analysis, of which 6,920 (16.69%) showed significant differences, including 4,168 significantly upregulated ones (10.05%) and 2,752 significantly downregulated ones (6.64%). We enriched the 17 most important KEGG pathways and found that these pathways were more active after being treated with MeJA treatment. Further analysis revealed that flavonoid biosynthesis pathways were activated by MeJA treatment, especially PAL2, 4CL1, 4CL2, CHS2, CHI2, F3H and FLS1 gene expression was significantly upregulated. In addition, 37 differentially expressed transcription factors were identified as being involved in the hypothetical regulatory network of the flavonoid synthesis pathway under MeJA treatment.