β-cyclocitral (βCC), a major apocarotenoid of β-carotene, enhances plants’ defense against environmental stresses. However, the knowledge of βCC’s involvement in the complex stress-signaling network is limited. Here we demonstrate how βCC reprograms the transcriptional responses that enable Solanum lycopersicum L. (tomato) plants to endure a plethora of environmental stresses. Comparative transcriptome analysis of control and βCC-treated tomato plants was done by generating RNA sequences in the BGISEQ-500 platform. The trimmed sequences were mapped on the tomato reference genome that identifies 211 protein-coding differentially expressed genes. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis and their enrichment uncovered that only upregulated genes are attributed to the stress response. Moreover, 80% of the upregulated genes are functionally related to abiotic and biotic stresses. Co-functional analysis of stress-responsive genes revealed a network of 18 genes that code for heat shock proteins, transcription factors (TFs), and calcium-binding proteins. The upregulation of jasmonic acid (JA)-dependent TFs (MYC2, MYB44, ERFs) but not the JA biosynthetic genes is surprising. However, the upregulation of DREB3, an abscisic acid (ABA)-independent TF, validates the unaltered expression of ABA biosynthetic genes. We conclude that βCC treatment upregulates multiple stress-responsive genes without eliciting JA and ABA biosynthesis.

The extensive use of Embelia ribes Burm. f. (Embelia) in tribal medicine proclaimed global attention as a promising candidate in complementary and alternative medicine. The knowledge of chemical blends is a prerequisite for the selection of raw materials for herbal medicine formulations; however, the influence of geographical distance and genetic diversity on the metabolome of Embelia fruits is unknown. Therefore, we collected Embelia fruits from four locations across the Western Ghats of India and analyzed the metabolic profile and genotypic diversity of Embelia fruits by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR), respectively. LC-MS/MS analysis yielded 583 compounds; however, the trimmed data resulted in 149 compounds. Further, MS/MS analysis identified 36 compounds, among which we reported 30 compounds for the first time from Embelia. These compounds belong to 11 compound classes that suggest location-specific chemical blends of Embelia fruits. Multivariate analysis showed 94% compound diversity across the accessions. ISSR analysis suggests 95% polymorphism across the accessions. A significant positive correlation (80%) between metabolomics and genotypic data matrices validates the genotype’s influence in tuning Embelia’s metabolic profiles. We conclude that the chemical profiles of Embelia are location-specific, which can be explored for the selection of herbal trade sustainably.