| Summary: | <i>Cannabis</i> (<i>Cannabis sativa</i> L.) is widely cultivated and studied for its psychoactive and medicinal properties. As the major cannabinoids are present in acidic forms in <i>Cannabis</i> plants, non-enzymatic processes, such as decarboxylation, are crucial for their conversion to neutral active cannabinoid forms. Herein, we detected the levels of cannabidivarin (CBDV), cannabidiol (CBD), cannabichromene (CBC), and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) in the leaves and vegetative shoots of five commercial <i>Cannabis</i> cultivars using a combination of relatively simple extraction, decarboxylation, and high-performance liquid chromatography analyses. The CBDV, CBC, and Δ9-THC levels were 6.3–114.9, 34.4–187.2, and 57.6–407.4 μg/g, respectively, and the CBD levels were the highest, ranging between 1.2–8.9 μg/g in leaf and vegetative shoot tissues of <i>Cannabis</i> cultivars. Additionally, correlations were observed between cannabinoid accumulation and transcription levels of genes encoding key enzymes for cannabinoid biosynthesis, including <i>CsCBGAS</i>, <i>CsCBDAS</i>, <i>CsCBCAS</i>, and <i>CsTHCAS</i>. These data suggest that the high accumulation of cannabinoids, such as CBC, Δ9-THC, and CBD, might be derived from the transcriptional regulation of <i>CsCBGAS</i> and <i>CsCBDAS</i> in <i>Cannabis</i> plants.
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