Abstract
BackgroundCa2+ played as a ubiquitous secondary messenger involved in plant growth, development, and responses to various environmental stimuli. Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPK) were important Ca2+ sensors, which could directly translate Ca2+ signals into downstream phosphorylation signals. Considering the importance of CDPKs as Ca2+ effectors for regulation of plant stress tolerance and few studies on Brachypodium distachyon were available, it was of interest for us to isolate CDPKs from B. distachyon.ResultsA systemic analysis of 30 CDPK family genes in B. distachyon was performed. Results showed that all BdCDPK family members contained conserved catalytic Ser/Thr protein kinase domain, autoinhibitory domain, and EF-hand domain, and a variable N-terminal domain, could be divided into four subgroup (I-IV), based upon sequence homology. Most BdCDPKs had four EF-hands, in which EF2 and EF4 revealed high variability and strong divergence from EF-hand in AtCDPKs. Synteny results indicated that large number of syntenic relationship events existed between rice and B. distachyon, implying their high conservation. Expression profiles indicated that most of BdCDPK genes were involved in phytohormones signal transduction pathways and regulated physiological process in responding to multiple environmental stresses. Moreover, the co-expression network implied that BdCDPKs might be both the activator and the repressor involved in WRKY transcription factors or MAPK cascade genes mediated stress response processes, base on their complex regulatory network.ConclusionsBdCDPKs might play multiple function in WRKY or MAPK mediated abiotic stresses response and phytohormone signaling transduction in B. distachyon. Our genomics analysis of BdCDPKs could provide fundamental information for further investigation the functions of CDPKs in integrating Ca2+ signalling pathways in response to environments stresses in B. distachyon.
Highlights
Ca2+ played as a ubiquitous secondary messenger involved in plant growth, development, and responses to various environmental stimuli
The result of subcellular localization prediction showed that most of BdCDPKs were located in cytoplasmic, other of them were predicted to exit in chloroplast or mitochondrial, which was consistent with the fact that Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPK) acted as Ca2+ sensors to integrate extracellular stimuli [46]
All BdCDPKs were possessed of a typical CDPK structure like AtCPKs, including a variable N-terminal domain, a catalytic Ser/Thr protein kinase domain, an autoinhibitory domain, and a EF-hand domain
Summary
Ca2+ played as a ubiquitous secondary messenger involved in plant growth, development, and responses to various environmental stimuli. Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CDPK) were important Ca2+ sensors, which could directly translate Ca2+ signals into downstream phosphorylation signals. CDPKs were distinctive because their unique structure, which contains a catalytic Ser/Thr protein kinase domain and a CaM domain containing EF-hand motifs for Ca2+-binding capacity [11]. CDPK proteins can function both as Ca2+ sensors and effectors to directly translate Ca2+ signals into downstream phosphorylation signals [12, 13]. Typical CDPK gene family members were composed of four conserved domains, including a variable N-terminal domain, a protein kinase domain, an auto-inhibitory domain and a C-terminal regulatory calmodulin-like domain [6]. The Ca2+ binding led to a change in the protein structure, altered the auto-inhibitory domain, and activated the CDPKs [20]
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