Abstract
The plant-special SHI-RELATED SEQUENCE (SRS) family plays vital roles in various biological processes. However, the genome-wide analysis and abiotic stress-related functions of this family were less reported in soybean. In this work, 21 members of soybean SRS family were identified, which were divided into three groups (Group I, II, and III). The chromosome location and gene structure were analyzed, which indicated that the members in the same group may have similar functions. The analysis of stress-related cis-elements showed that the SRS family may be involved in abiotic stress signaling pathway. The analysis of expression patterns in various tissues demonstrated that SRS family may play crucial roles in special tissue-dependent regulatory networks. The data based on soybean RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and quantitative Real-Time PCR (qRT-PCR) proved that SRS genes were induced by drought, NaCl, and exogenous abscisic acid (ABA). GmSRS18 significantly induced by drought and NaCl was selected for further functional verification. GmSRS18, encoding a cell nuclear protein, could negatively regulate drought and salt resistance in transgenic Arabidopsis. It can affect stress-related physiological index, including chlorophyll, proline, and relative electrolyte leakage. Additionally, it inhibited the expression levels of stress-related marker genes. Taken together, these results provide valuable information for understanding the classification of soybean SRS transcription factors and indicates that SRS plays important roles in abiotic stress responses.
Highlights
The members of SHI-RELATED SEQUENCE (SRS) transcription factor family as the plant-specific family play crucial roles in plant growth and development
We analyzed the basal characteristic of 21 members in soybean containing amino acid residues, molecular mass (KD), PI, chromosome, domain location, and the best hit in Arabidopsis (Table 1)
The number of amino acid residues ranges from 201 to 371, and the molecular mass (KD) ranges from 22323.7 to 41022.1. The characteristics of their proteins were mainly neutral and alkaline except GmSRS19 (PI 5.765). We found their corresponding members with the highest homology in Arabidopsis (Table 1)
Summary
The members of SHI-RELATED SEQUENCE (SRS) transcription factor family as the plant-specific family play crucial roles in plant growth and development. The structure of the proteins encoded by the SRS transcription factor genes (SRSs) contains a conserved RING-like zinc-finger domain (CX2CX7CX4CX2C2X6C), and some proteins among them contain the IXGH domain [2]. The nine members possess both the RING-like zinc finger domain and IXGH domain They play very important roles in the progress of plant growth. The members of the SHI/STY family had the redundant function in the progress of auxin biosynthesis probably by regulating the photomorphogenesis-related genes (HY5, BBX21, and BBX22) [11,13,18,19]. We identified the function of GmSRS18 in drought and salt responses These results will give us a novel understanding about the soybean SRS family and provide the candidate resistant gene for soybean breeding
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