Abstract
Calcium is an important second messenger in mediating adaptation responses of plants to abiotic and biotic stresses. Calmodulin-like (CML) protein is an important calcium-signaling protein that can sense and decode Ca2+ signal in plants. Medicago truncatula is a model legume plant; however, investigations of MtCML proteins are limited. Using genome analysis and BLAST database searches, fifty MtCML proteins that possess EF-hand motifs were identified. Phylogenetic analysis showed that CML homologs between M. truncatula, Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa shared close relationships. Gene structure analysis revealed that these MtCML genes contained one to four conserved EF-hand motifs. All MtCMLs are localized to eight chromosomes and underwent gene duplication. In addition, MtCML genes were differentially expressed in different tissues of M. truncatula. Cis-acting elements in promoter region and expression analysis revealed the potential response of MtCML protein to abiotic stress and hormones. The results provide a basis of further functional research on the MtCML gene family and facilitate their potential use for applications in the genetic improvement on M. truncatula in drought, cold and salt stress environments.
Highlights
Calcium is a universal second messenger in mediating adaptation responses of plants to abiotic and biotic stresses [1]
The results provide a comprehensive understanding of the CaM-like proteins (CMLs) gene family in M. truncatula
A genome-wide search for CML genes was performed using the BLASTP program based on the completed genome sequence of M. truncatula, using Arabidopsis and rice CML genes as the query sequences
Summary
Calcium is a universal second messenger in mediating adaptation responses of plants to abiotic and biotic stresses [1]. Diverse stimuli such as plant hormones, low temperature, drought, salt, and pathogens induce rapid and transient changes in cellular Ca2+ concentration [2], which are sensed and decoded by calcium-binding proteins (CBP) to activate downstream reactions [3]. The CBPs include calmodulins (CaMs), CaM-like proteins (CMLs), Ca2+-dependent protein kinases (CPKs/CDPKs) and calcineurin B-like proteins (CBLs) in plants [4,5,6]. CMLs are a unique class of EF-hand proteins and existed in plants. The CML gene family has been characterized in some plant species, such as Arabidopsis [9], rice [10], grapevine (Vitis amurensis) [11], Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa) [12] and tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) [13]
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