Genome-Wide Investigation of the NF-X1 Gene Family in Populus trichocarpa Expression Profiles during Development and Stress.

Fang He,Fan Zhang,Han-Bo Yang,Jin-Liang Huang,Qian Zhao,Xue-Qin Wan,Xing-Lei Cui,Yu-Jie Shi,Jia-Xuan Mi,Liang-Hua Chen,Kuang-Ji Zhao

doi:10.3390/ijms22094664

Fang He, Fan Zhang + Show 9 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22094664

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Abstract

Poplar are planted extensively in reforestation and afforestation. However, their successful establishment largely depends on the environmental conditions of the newly established plantation and their resistance to abiotic as well as biotic stresses. NF-X1, a widespread transcription factor in plants, plays an irreplaceable role in plant growth, development, and stress tolerance. Although the whole genome sequence of Populus trichocarpa has been published for a long time, little is known about the NF-X1 genes in poplar, especially those related to drought stress, mechanical damage, insect feeding, and hormone response at the whole genome level. In this study, whole genome analysis of the poplar NF-X1 family was performed, and 4 PtrNF-X1 genes were identified. Then, bioinformatics analysis and qRT-PCR were applied to analyze the gene structure, phylogeny, chromosomal localization, gene replication, Cis-elements, and expression patterns of PtrNF-X1 genes. Sequence analysis revealed that one-quarter of the PtrNF-X1 genes did not contain introns. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all NF-X1 genes were split into three subfamilies. The number of two pairs of segmented replication genes were detected in poplars. Cis-acting element analysis identified a large number of elements of growth and development and stress-related elements on the promoters of different NF-X1 members. In addition, some PtrNF-X1 could be significantly induced by polyethylene glycol (PEG) and abscisic acid (ABA), thus revealing their potential role in regulating stress response. Comprehensive analysis is helpful in selecting candidate NF-X1 genes for the follow-up study of the biological function, and molecular genetic progress of stress resistance in forest trees provides genetic resources.

Highlights

The survival, growth, and reproduction of plants are adversely affected by a broad range of biotic and abiotic stresses [1,2]
The eight putative NF-X1 genes were identified in the published A. thaliana, O. sativa, and P. trichocarpa reference genomes [34] and were successively named AtNF-X1-1 to
To deeply validate whether the abundance of NF-X1 genes were affected by abiotic stress and hormone treatment, four NF-X1 genes were carefully chosen for qRT-PCR assay to analyze their expression profiles in answer to polyethylene glycol (PEG), abscisic acid (ABA), and MeJA treatment

Summary

Introduction

The survival, growth, and reproduction of plants are adversely affected by a broad range of biotic and abiotic stresses [1,2]. Mites, harmful bacteria, herbivores, human activities, and so on [3,4]. Abiotic stresses pose significant threats to plants, including pole-end temperatures, water deficiency or excess, high salinity, oxidative stress, ultraviolet B (UV-B) light, and chemical contaminants [5,6,7]. During the long-term evolution, plants respond to such unfavorable environmental variables via growth, developmental, cellular, molecular, physiological, and biochemical pathways [8]. Osmotic stress is the main signal of abiotic stress in plants [9,10], including drought, salt, cold and heat, etc. A network of transcription factors (TFs) can regulate the stress-responsive genes, whose expression control the above responses [11]

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