scholarly journals Genome-Wide Identification and Analysis of VQ Motif-containing Gene Family in Brassica napus and Functional Characterization of BnMKS1 in Response to Leptosphaeria maculans

Author(s):  
Zhongwei Zou ◽  
Fei Liu ◽  
Shuanglong Huang ◽  
DILANTHA GERARD FERNANDO

Proteins containing Valine-glutamine (VQ) motifs play important roles in plant growth and development, as well as in defense responses to both abiotic and biotic stresses. Blackleg disease, which is caused by Leptosphaeria maculans, is the most important disease in canola (Brassica napus L.) worldwide. H; however, the identification of B. napus VQs and their functions in response to blackleg disease have not yet been reported. In this study, we conducted a genome genome-wide identification and characterization of the VQ gene family in B. napus, including chromosome location, phylogenetic relations, gene structure, motif domain, synteny analysis, and cis-elements categorization of their promoter regions. To understand B. napus VQ gene function in response to blackleg disease, we overexpressed BnVQ7 (BnaA01g36880D, also known as the mitogen-activated protein kinase4 substrate1 (MKS1) gene) in a blackleg-susceptible canola variety Westar. Overexpression The overexpression of BnMKS1 in canola did not improve its resistance to blackleg disease at the seedling stage. H; however, transgenic canola plants overexpressing BnMKS1 displayed an enhanced resistance to L. maculans infection at the adult plant stage. Expression levels of downstream and defense marker genes in cotyledons increased significantly at the necrotrophic stage of L. maculans infection in the overexpression line of BnMKS1, suggesting that the SA salicylic acid (SA)- and jasmonic acid (JA )-mediated signaling pathways were both involved in the defense responses. Together, these results suggest that BnMKS1 might play an important role in the defense against L. maculans.

Genes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1973
Author(s):  
Qingbo Zheng ◽  
Shenghui Su ◽  
Zhe Wang ◽  
Yongzhang Wang ◽  
Xiaozhao Xu

γ-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA), a four-carbon non-protein amino acid, is a significant component of the free amino acid pool in most prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. GABA is involved in pH regulation, maintaining C/N balance, plant development and defence, as well as a compatible osmolyte and an alternative pathway for glutamate utilization via anion flux. Glutamate decarboxylase (GAD, EC 4.1.1.15) and GABA transaminase (GABA-T, EC 2.6.1.19) are two key enzymes involved in the synthesis and metabolism of GABA. Recently, GABA transporters (GATs), protein and aluminium-activated malate transporter (ALMT) proteins which function as GABA receptors, have been shown to be involved in GABA regulation. However, there is no report on the characterization of apple GABA pathway genes. In this study, we performed a genome-wide analysis and expression profiling of the GABA pathway gene family in the apple genome. A total of 24 genes were identified including five GAD genes (namely MdGAD 1–5), two GABA-T genes (namely MdGABA-T 1,2), 10 GAT genes (namely GAT 1–10) and seven ALMT genes (namely MdALMT1–7). These genes were randomly distributed on 12 chromosomes. Phylogenetic analyses grouped GABA shunt genes into three clusters—cluster I, cluster II, and cluster III—which had three, four, and five genes, respectively. The expression profile analysis revealed significant MdGAD4 expression levels in both fruit and flower organs, except pollen. However, there were no significant differences in the expression of other GABA shunt genes in different tissues. This work provides the first characterization of the GABA shunt gene family in apple and suggests their importance in apple response to abiotic stress. These results can serve as a guide for future studies on the understanding and functional characterization of these gene families.


2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 614
Author(s):  
Weiqi Sun ◽  
Mengdi Li ◽  
Jianbo Wang

Brassica napus and its diploid progenitors (B. rapa and B. oleracea) are suitable for studying the problems associated with polyploidization. As an important anti-stress protein, RCI2 proteins widely exist in various tissues of plants, and are crucial to plant growth, development, and stress response. In this study, the RCI2 gene family was comprehensively identified and analyzed, and 9, 9, and 24 RCI2 genes were identified in B. rapa, B. oleracea, and B. napus, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all of the identified RCI2 genes were divided into two groups, and further divided into three subgroups. Ka/Ks analysis showed that most of the identified RCI2 genes underwent a purifying selection after the duplication events. Moreover, gene structure analysis showed that the structure of RCI2 genes is largely conserved during polyploidization. The promoters of the RCI2 genes in B. napus contained more cis-acting elements, which were mainly involved in plant development and growth, plant hormone response, and stress responses. Thus, B. napus might have potential advantages in some biological aspects. In addition, the changes of RCI2 genes during polyploidization were also discussed from the aspects of gene number, gene structure, gene relative location, and gene expression, which can provide reference for future polyploidization analysis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanan Song ◽  
Hongli Cui ◽  
Ying Shi ◽  
Jinai Xue ◽  
Chunli Ji ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: WRKY transcription factors are a superfamily of regulators involved in diverse biological processes and stress responses in plants. However, knowledge is limited for WRKY family in camelina (Camelina sativa), an important Brassicaceae oil crop with strong tolerance against various stresses. Here, genome-wide characterization of WRKY proteins is performed to examine their gene-structures, phylogenetics, expressions, conserved motif organizations, and functional annotation to identify candidate WRKYs mediating regulation of stress resistance in camelina.Results: Total of 242 CsWRKY proteins encoded by 224 gene loci distributed uneven on chromosomes were identified, and classified into three groups via phylogenetic analysis according to their WRKY domains and zinc finger motifs. 15 CsWRKY gene loci generated 33 spliced variants. Orthologous WRKY gene pairs were identified, with 173 pairs in C. sativa and Arabidopsis genomes as well as 282 pairs for C. sativa and B. napus, respectively. 137 segmental duplication events were observed but no tandem duplication in camelina genome. Ten major conserved motifs were examined, with WRKYGQK as the most conserved and several variants existed in many CsWRKYs. Expression analysis revealed that half more CsWRKY genes were expressed constitutively, and a set of them had a tissue-specific expression. Notably, 11 CsWRKY genes exhibited significantly expression changes in plant seedlings under cold, salt, and drought stress, respectively, having preferentially inducible expression pattern in response to the stress.Conclusions: The present described a detail analysis of CsWRKY gen family and their expression profiled in twelve tissues and under several stress conditions. Segmental duplication is the major force for large expansion of this gene family, and a strong purifying pressure happened for CsWRKY proteins evolutionally. CsWRKY proteins play important roles for plant development, with differential functions in different tissues. Exceptionally, eleven CsWRKYs, particularly five alternative spliced isoforms were found to be the key players possibly in mediating plant response to various stresses. Overall, our results provide a foundation for understanding roles of CsWRKYs and the precise mechanism through which CsWRKYs regulate high stress resistance to stress as well as development of stress tolerance cultivars for Cruciferae crops.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Weizhuo Zhu ◽  
Yiyi Guo ◽  
Yeke Chen ◽  
Dezhi Wu ◽  
Lixi Jiang

Abstract Background Transcription factors GATAs are involved in plant developmental processes and respond to environmental stresses through binding DNA regulatory regions to regulate their downstream genes. However, little information on the GATA genes in Brassica napus is available. The release of the reference genome of B. napus provides a good opportunity to perform a genome-wide characterization of GATA family genes in rapeseed. Results In this study, 96 GATA genes randomly distributing on 19 chromosomes were identified in B. napus, which were classified into four subfamilies based on phylogenetic analysis and their domain structures. The amino acids of BnGATAs were obvious divergence among four subfamilies in terms of their GATA domains, structures and motif compositions. Gene duplication and synteny between the genomes of B. napus and A. thaliana were also analyzed to provide insights into evolutionary characteristics. Moreover, BnGATAs showed different expression patterns in various tissues and under diverse abiotic stresses. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) distributions of BnGATAs in a core collection germplasm are probably associated with functional disparity under environmental stress condition in different genotypes of B. napus. Conclusion The present study was investigated genomic structures, evolution features, expression patterns and SNP distributions of 96 BnGATAs. The results enrich our understanding of the GATA genes in rapeseed.


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