Quantification of Jasmonic and salicylic acids in rice seedling leaves

Abstract

Jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) are critical signaling components involved in various aspects of plant growth, development, and defense. Their constitutive levels vary from plant to plant and also from tissue to tissue within the same plant. Moreover, their quantitative levels change when plant is exposed to biotic and abiotic stresses. To better understand the JA- and SA-mediated signaling and metabolic pathways, it is important to precisely quantify their levels in plants/tissues/organs. However, their extraction and quantification are not trivial and still technically challenging. An effort has been made in various laboratories to develop a simple and standard procedure that can be utilized for quantification of JA and SA. Here, we present the experimental procedure and our decade of experience on extracting and quantifying them in an absolute manner in leaves of rice seedlings. We must mention that this method has been applied to both monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants for absolute quantification of JA and SA. As collaboration is the key towards rapid progress in science and technology, we are always open to sharing our experience in this field with any active research group with an aim to improve the procedure further and eventually to connect the importance of their (JA and SA) quantitative levels with networks of signaling and metabolic pathways in plants. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.