Abstract
Anthocyanins have essential biological functions, affecting the development of horticultural production. They are synthesized in the cytoplasm through flavonoid metabolic pathways and finally transported into vacuoles for storage. Plant glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) are multifunctional enzymes involved in anthocyanin transportation. In this study, we identified 38 GSTs from the apple (Malus domestica) genome (HFTH1 Whole Genome v1.0) based on the sequence similarity with the GST family proteins of Arabidopsis. These MdGST genes could be grouped into nine chief subclasses: U, F, L, Z, T, GHR, EF1Bγ, TCHQD, and DHAR. The structures, motifs, three-dimensional models, and chromosomal distribution of MdGST genes were further analyzed. Elements which are responsive for some hormones and stress, and others that involve genes related to flavonoid biosynthesis were forecast in the promoter of MdGST. In addition, we identified 32 orthologous gene pairs between apple and Arabidopsis. These genes indicated that numerous apple and Arabidopsis counterparts appeared to be derived from a common ancestor. Amongst the 38 MdGST genes, MdGSTU12 was considerably correlated with anthocyanin variation in terms of extracting expression profiles from reported. Finally, further functional identification in apple transgenic calli and subcellular localization confirmed that MdGSTU12 was of great significance in anthocyanin accumulation in apple.
Highlights
Flavonoids almost exist in all higher plants in nature as a secondary metabolite and they have various biological functions
The glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) family members in the apple HFTH1 genome were strictly screened through the blastp and hidden Markov model (HMM) searches [24], which accurately identified 38 GST family members
According to the gene annotation information, the length of the MdGST genes varied from 522 bp to 4983 bp, encoding 173 to 1660 amino acids
Summary
Flavonoids almost exist in all higher plants in nature as a secondary metabolite and they have various biological functions. Anthocyanin is a kind of water-soluble pigment in flavonoid compounds, which is widely distributed in various plants in nature The expression of this color depends, to a certain extent, on the PH value of vacuoles [2,3]. The enzymes involved in the anthocyanin synthetic pathway loosely form a multi-enzyme complex—cinnamate-4-hydroxylase (C4H), flavanone-3b-hydroxylase (F3H), and flavonoid 30 -hydroxylase (F30 H)—that are used as scaffolds to assemble with soluble subunits on the endoplasmic reticulum. These enzymes are further regulated and modified by the ternary complex (MBW) composed of R2R3-MYB, bHLH, and WD40 proteins [6,7]
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