Abstract
BackgroundThe C2H2-type zinc finger proteins (C2H2-ZFPs) are one of major classes of transcription factors that play important roles in plant growth, development and stress responses. Limit information about the C2H2-ZF genes hinders the molecular breeding in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum).ResultsIn this study, 457 C2H2-ZFP proteins (including 253 splice variants), which contain four types of conserved domain (named Q, M, Z, and D), could be further classified into ten subsets. They were identified to be distributed in 21 chromosomes in T. aestivum. Subset-specific motifs, like NPL-, SFP1-, DL- (EAR-like-motif), R-, PL-, L- and EK-, might make C2H2-ZFP diverse multifunction. Interestingly, NPL- and SFP1-box were firstly found to be located in C2H2-ZFP proteins. Synteny analyses showed that only 4 pairs of C2H2 family genes in T. aestivum, 65 genes in B. distachyon, 66 genes in A. tauschii, 68 genes in rice, 9 genes in Arabidopsis, were syntenic relationships respectively. It indicated that TaZFPs were closely related to genes in Poaceae. From the published transcriptome data, totally 198 of 204 TaC2H2-ZF genes have expression data. Among them, 25 TaC2H2-ZF genes were certificated to be significantly differentially expressed in 5 different organs and 15 different development stages by quantitative RT-PCR. The 18 TaC2H2-ZF genes were verified in response to heat, drought, and heat & drought stresses. According to expression pattern analysis, several TaZFPs, like Traes_5BL_D53A846BE.1, were not only highly expressed in L2DAAs, RTLS, RMS, but also endowed tolerance to drought and heat stresses, making them good candidates for molecular breeding.ConclusionsThis study systematically characterized the TaC2H2-ZFPs and their potential roles in T. aestivum. Our findings provide new insights into the C2H2-ZF genes in T. aestivum as well as a foundation for further studies on the roles of TaC2H2-ZF genes in T. aestivum molecular breeding.
Highlights
The C2H2-type zinc finger proteins (C2H2-ZFPs) are one of major classes of transcription factors that play important roles in plant growth, development and stress responses
According to the retrieved of the PlantTFDB database, iTAK database and ExPASy server, the 204 T. aestivum C2H2-ZFPs sequences showed that their amino acid length, molecular weight (Mw), isoelectric points, subcellular localization predictions, for details about T aC2H2-ZFP, please refer to Additional file 1: Table S2
To detect preferentially expressed TaC2H2-ZF genes in certain T. aestivum tissues and at certain stages, we found that totally 198 of 204 TaC2H2-ZF genes were expressed in all organs and development stages, and 37 of 204 TaC2H2-ZF genes were responded to heat, drought, and heat & drought abiotic stresses according to public transcriptome data
Summary
The C2H2-type zinc finger proteins (C2H2-ZFPs) are one of major classes of transcription factors that play important roles in plant growth, development and stress responses. The C2H2-type zinc finger proteins constitute a large family of transcription factors. The C2H2-ZFP family, which have been reported in numerous plant genomes, significantly contribute to the plant growth development, and participate in multiple biological processes by transcriptional regulation. In T. aestivum, the C1-2i Q-type and C3H zinc finger protein (ZFP) transcription factor subclass has been reported to play important roles in plant stress responses and physiological stages [5, 6]. In Arabidopsis, the AZF1, AZF2, AZF3, ZAT6, ZAT7, Z AT8, ZAT10, ZAT12 and ZAT18 have been shown to function in multiple cellular processes, including seed germination, drought, cold, high-salinity, and oxidative stress responses [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. In Poplar (Populus alba), PtrZFP2/19/95 showed high expression levels in leaves and/or roots under environmental stresses by genomewide analysis, which provided a solid foundation for studying the biological roles of C2H2-ZF genes in Populus growth and development [20]
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