Abstract
CONSTANS-LIKE (COL) genes play important roles in the regulation of plant growth and development, and they have been analyzed in many plant species. However, few studies have examined COL genes in mungbean (Vigna radiata). In this study, we identified and characterized 31 mungbean genes whose proteins contained B-Box domains. Fourteen were designated as VrCOL genes and were distributed on 7 of the 11 mungbean chromosomes. Based on their phylogenetic relationships, VrCOLs were clustered into three groups (I, II, and III), which contained 4, 6, and 4 members, respectively. The gene structures and conserved motifs of the VrCOL genes were analyzed, and two duplicated gene pairs, VrCOL1/VrCOL2 and VrCOL8/VrCOL9, were identified. A total of 82 cis-acting elements were found in the VrCOL promoter regions, and the numbers and types of cis-acting elements in each VrCOL promoter region differed. As a result, the expression patterns of VrCOLs varied in different tissues and throughout the day under long-day and short-day conditions. Among these VrCOL genes, VrCOL2 showed a close phylogenetic relationship with Arabidopsis thaliana CO and displayed daily oscillations in expression under short-day conditions but not long-day conditions. In addition, overexpression of VrCOL2 accelerated flowering in Arabidopsis under short-day conditions by affecting the expression of the flowering time genes AtFT and AtTSF. Our study lays the foundation for further investigation of VrCOL gene functions.
Highlights
Flowering time is a key factor that influences crop growth and development, and crops achieve higher yields when they flower at the correct time
A number of genes in these pathways are known to be involved in flowering time regulation, including CONSTANS-LIKE (COL) genes, phosphatidyl ethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) genes, and several members of the MADS-box gene family (Gangappa and Botto, 2014; Wickland and Hanzawa, 2015; Beinecke et al, 2018; del-Olmo et al, 2019; Jin et al, 2019, 2020; Jing et al, 2019; Lee et al, 2019; Nam et al, 2019; Ning et al, 2019; Parenicova et al, 2019)
The amino acid sequences of the conserved BBX domain (PF00643) and of Arabidopsis BBX proteins were used as blast queries against the mungbean genome database at National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Summary
Flowering time is a key factor that influences crop growth and development, and crops achieve higher yields when they flower at the correct time. A number of genes in these pathways are known to be involved in flowering time regulation, including CONSTANS-LIKE (COL) genes, phosphatidyl ethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) genes, and several members of the MADS-box gene family (Gangappa and Botto, 2014; Wickland and Hanzawa, 2015; Beinecke et al, 2018; del-Olmo et al, 2019; Jin et al, 2019, 2020; Jing et al, 2019; Lee et al, 2019; Nam et al, 2019; Ning et al, 2019; Parenicova et al, 2019). Several COL proteins contain valine-proline (VP) motifs in their C termini (Khanna et al, 2009; Gangappa and Botto, 2014)
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