Abstract
The WRKY gene family plays a unique role in plant stress tolerance. Quinoa is a cultivated crop worldwide that is known for its high stress tolerance. The WRKY gene family in quinoa has not yet been studied. Using a genome-wide search method, we identified 1226 WRKY genes in 15 plant species, seven animal species, and seven fungi species. WRKY proteins were not found in animal species and five fungi species, but were, however, widespread in land plants. A total of 92 CqWRKY genes were identified in quinoa. Based on the phylogenetic analysis, these CqWRKY genes were classified into three groups. The CqWRKY proteins have a highly conserved heptapeptide WRKYGQK with 15 conserved elements. Furthermore, a total of 25 CqWRKY genes were involved in the co-expression pathway of organ development and osmotic stress. The expression level of more than half of these CqWRKY genes showed significant variation under salt or drought stress. This study reports, for the first time, the findings of the CqWRKY gene family in quinoa at the genome-wide level. This information will be beneficial for our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance in crops, such as quinoa.
Highlights
The WRKY gene family is an important transcription factor, playing a unique regulatory role in plants’ defense responses to abiotic and biotic stresses
The phylogeny evolutionary relationships, conserved motifs, subgroup classification, regulatory network, and the expression patterns of WRKY proteins were analyzed. These results will be beneficial for our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance in crops such as quinoa
The results showed that WRKY proteins were not identified in the 7 animal species including flatworms, molluscs, horsehair worm, fish, amphibians, and reptiles
Summary
The WRKY gene family is an important transcription factor, playing a unique regulatory role in plants’ defense responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. They can positively or negatively regulate the expression of other genes to increase the stress tolerance of plants [1]. The overexpression of FvWRKY42 in Arabidopsis resulted in the enhanced powdery mildew resistance, salt and drought stress tolerance [2]. Previous study found that VvWRKY30 in grape had a positive effect on salt stress and transgenic Arabidopsis had super salt stress resistance by regulating a series of glycol-metabolism dependent genes [3].
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