Abstract
Hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA: shikimate hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT) is mainly associated with monolignol biosynthesis, a central precursor to producing guaiacyl and syringyl lignins in plants. However, the explicit regulatory mechanism of HCT-mediated monolignol biosynthesis in plants still remained unclear. Here, the genome-wide analysis of the HCT gene family in Carthamus tinctorius as a target for understanding growth, development, and stress-responsive mechanisms was investigated. A total of 82 CtHCT genes were identified and characterized. Most of the CtHCTs proteins demonstrated the presence of two common conserved domains, including HXXXD and DFGWG. In addition, the conserved structure of protein motifs, PPI network, cis-regulatory units, and gene structure analysis demonstrated several genetic determinants reflecting the wide range of functional diversity of CtHCT-encoding genes. The observed expression analysis of CtHCT genes in different flowering stages under normal conditions partially highlighted their putative roles in plant growth and development pathways. Moreover, CtHCT genes appeared to be associated with abiotic stress responses as validated by the expression profiling in various flowering phases under light irradiation and MeJA treatment. Altogether, these findings provide new insights into identifying crucial molecular targets associated with plant growth and development and present practical information for understanding abiotic stress-responsive mechanisms in plants.
Highlights
Carthamus tinctorius is commonly known as safflower or ‘bastard saffron’, which belongs to the Asteraceae family of the plant kingdom
The set of CtHCT sequences were re-investigated for the existence of HXXXD and functional domain of transferase using the online webserver of MARCOIL
The assembly and organization of CtHCTs in C. tinctorius revealed that evolutionary events such as tandem duplication and genome repetition might participate in the origin hydroxycinnamoyl transferase (HCT) gene family
Summary
Carthamus tinctorius is commonly known as safflower or ‘bastard saffron’, which belongs to the Asteraceae family of the plant kingdom. The increasing demand for its oilseed, which is extremely rich in conjugated linoleic acid, has attracted the attention of plant biologists worldwide. Safflower’s oilseed consists of 80% of octadecadienoic acid, which helps regulate the rate of cholesterol and avert diseases related to cardiovascular channels (Roh et al, 2004). Almost over 5000 types of phenolic compounds and lignin derivatives exist across the plant kingdom in which safflower shares a remarkable reservoir of flavonoids. The widely distributed classes of flavonoids in C. tinctorius mainly include carthamin chalcone glycoside, kaempferol glucosides, hydroxylsafflor yellow A&B, and quercetin glucosides (Ye and Gao, 2008; Zhang et al, 2011)
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