Abstract
CONSTANS-like (COL) genes play important regulatory roles in multiple growth and development processes of plants but have rarely been studied in Capsicum annuum. This study explored the evolutionary relationship and expression patterns of COL genes from C. annuum. A total of 10 COL genes were identified in the genome of the cultivated pepper Zunla-1 and were named CaCOL01–10. These genes were unequally distributed among five chromosomes and could be divided into three groups based on differences in gene structure characteristics. During evolutionary history, duplications and retentions were divergent among different groups of COL genes. Tandem duplication caused amplification of group I genes. Genetic distance among COL genes was the largest in group III, suggesting that group III genes undergo more relaxed selection pressure compared with the other groups. Expression patterns of CaCOLs in tissues were significantly different, with CaCOL08 exhibiting the highest expression in stem and leaf. Some COL orthologous genes showed markedly different expression patterns in pepper compared with tomato, such as COL_1 orthologs, which may be involved in fruit development in pepper. In addition, CaCOLs participated in the regulation of abiotic stresses to varying degrees. Five CaCOL genes were induced by cold, and CaCOL02 and CaCOL03 were specifically upregulated by cold and downregulated by heat. This study provides a theoretical basis for the in-depth understanding of the functions of COL genes in pepper and their molecular mechanisms involved in growth and development and responses to abiotic stresses.
Highlights
CONSTANS (CO), a crucial gene in the photoperiod flowering induction pathway of plants, is located in the circadian clock output pathway and promotes the flowering of plants by activating expression of the downstream floral gene FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) (Putterill et al, 1995)
Based on genome-wide identification and validation, all 10 COL gene family members were identified in the C. annuum cv
Nine COLs were identified in C. annuum cv
Summary
CONSTANS (CO), a crucial gene in the photoperiod flowering induction pathway of plants, is located in the circadian clock output pathway and promotes the flowering of plants by activating expression of the downstream floral gene FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) (Putterill et al, 1995). COL genes are characterized based on two conservative domains. The N-terminus of COL genes generally contains one to two B-box type zinc finger structures that can interact with ubiquitin ligase, receptor proteins, and transcriptional regulators (Robson et al, 2001; Valverde et al, 2004). According to the number and conservation of B-boxes, the A. thaliana COL gene family can be divided into three groups (Griffiths et al, 2003). In most other studied plants, the COL gene family clusters into three groups with strong bootstrap values. Both group I and group III genes stably contain two B-box domains in terrestrial plants before Amborella trichopoda. Differentiation of the B-box domain has a crucial role in the phyletic evolution of COL genes (Song et al, 2015; Niu et al, 2022)
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