Abstract
BackgroundThe B-BOX (BBX) proteins have important functions in regulating plant growth and development. In plants, the BBX gene family has been identified in several plants, such as rice, Arabidopsis and tomato. However, there still lack a genome-wide survey of BBX genes in pear.ResultsIn the present study, a total of 25 BBX genes were identified in pear (Pyrus bretschneideri Rehd.). Subsequently, phylogenetic relationship, gene structure, gene duplication, transcriptome data and qRT-PCR were conducted on these BBX gene members. The transcript analysis revealed that twelve PbBBX genes (48%) were specifically expressed in pear pollen tubes. Furthermore, qRT-PCR analysis indicated that both PbBBX4 and PbBBX13 have potential role in pear fruit development, while PbBBX5 should be involved in the senescence of pear pollen tube.ConclusionsThis study provided a genome-wide survey of BBX gene family in pear, and highlighted its roles in both pear fruits and pollen tubes. The results will be useful in improving our understanding of the complexity of BBX gene family and functional characteristics of its members in future study.
Highlights
The B-BOX (BBX) proteins have important functions in regulating plant growth and development
Identification of BBX genes in pear To obtain BBX proteins in pear genome, the published Arabidopsis BBX proteins were employed as a query to search against the local pear genome database by using DNAtools software
Gene duplication analysis suggested that the segmental duplications have driven expansion of the pear BBX gene family
Summary
The B-BOX (BBX) proteins have important functions in regulating plant growth and development. Zinc-finger protein is one of the important transcription factors, which play important roles in plant growth, development and response to environmental changes. In addition to the conserved B-BOX domain, some of the B-BOX members contain other family-specific domains, such as CCT (CONSTANS, CO-like and TOC1) domain. The B-BOX gene family could be divided into five subfamilies according to the number of B-BOX domains or the CCT domain they contained [2]. After the first identification of the B-BOX member from Xenopus laevis [3], its ortholog (CONSTANS: CO) in plant was cloned from Arabidoosis thaliana, with function in the photoperiod regulation of plant flowering time [4].
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