Abstract
BackgroundB-box (BBX) zinc-finger transcription factors play important roles in plant growth, development, and stress response. Although these proteins have been studied in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana or Oryza sativa, little is known about the evolutionary history or expression patterns of BBX proteins in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.).ResultsWe identified a total of 25 VviBBX genes in the grapevine genome and named them according to the homology with Arabidopsis. These proteins were classified into five groups on the basis of their phylogenetic relationships, number of B-box domains, and presence or absence of a CCT domain or VP motif. BBX proteins within the same group showed similar exon-intron structures and were unevenly distributed in grapevine chromosomes. Synteny analyses suggested that only segmental duplication events contributed to the expansion of the VviBBX gene family in grapevine. The observed syntenic relationships between some BBX genes from grapevine and Arabidopsis suggest that they evolved from a common ancestor. Transcriptional analyses showed that the grapevine BBX genes were regulated distinctly in response to powdery mildew infection and various phytohormones. Moreover, the expression levels of a subset of BBX genes in ovules were much higher in seedless grapevine cultivars compared with seeded cultivars during ovule development, implying a potential role in seed abortion. Additionally, VviBBX8, VquBBX15a and VquBBX29b were all located in the nucleus and had transcriptional activity except for VquBBX29b.ConclusionsThe results of this study establish the genome-wide analysis of the grapevine BBX family and provide a framework for understanding the biological roles of BBX genes in grapevine.
Highlights
B-box (BBX) zinc-finger transcription factors play important roles in plant growth, development, and stress response
The resulting protein sequences were assessed for the presence of a B-box domain as defined by the Simple Modular Architecture Research Tool (SMART; http:// smart.embl-heidelberg.de/) and the Conserved Domain Database (CDD; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Structure/cdd/cdd.shtml)
We found that three genes in Group V (VviBBX28, VviBBX30 and VviBBX32) had a single exon, while all others carried between two Chromosomal distribution and synteny analysis among VviBBX genes Based on their annotated genomic locations, the 25 VviBBX genes were found to be widely distributed among the grapevine chromosomes (Fig. 4)
Summary
B-box (BBX) zinc-finger transcription factors play important roles in plant growth, development, and stress response. These proteins have been studied in model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana or Oryza sativa, little is known about the evolutionary history or expression patterns of BBX proteins in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). Transcription factors (TFs) play varied and important roles in plant growth, development and biological responses [1]. The. B-box (BBX) zinc-finger TFs contain one or two conserved domains of approximately 40 amino acids near the amino terminus, and may contain a CCT (CONSTANS, CO-like and TOC1) domain and/or a valine-proline (VP) motif at the carboxyl terminus [3]. It has been reported that the conserved B-box domain mediates protein-protein interactions, while the CCT domain functions in transcriptional regulation [5, 6].
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