Genome-wide identification of the PEBP genes in pears and the putative role of PbFT in flower bud differentiation

Shuliang Zhao,Jianfeng Xu,Yarui Wei,Hongguang Pang,Yingli Li,Jianguang Zhang,Yuxing Zhang,Haixia Zhang

doi:10.7717/peerj.8928

Abstract

Although Phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) genes have been identified in several plants, little is known about PEBP genes in pears. In this study, a total of 24 PEBP genes were identified, in which 10, 5 and 9 were from Pyrus bretschneideri genome, Pyrus communis genome and Pyrus betuleafolia genome, respectively. Subsequently, gene structure, phylogenetic relationship, chromosomal localization, promoter regions, collinearity and expression were determined with these PEBP genes. It was found that only PbFT from PEBP genes of P. bretschneideri was relatively highly expressed in leaves during flower bud differentiation. Whereas, expression patterns of TFL1 homologues, gene23124 and gene16540, were different from PbFT in buds. The expression pattern and the treatment of reduction day-length indicated that the expression of PbFT in leaves were regulated by day-length and circadian clock. Additionally, the phenotype of transgenic Arabidopsis suggested that PbFT played a role in not only promoting flower bud differentiation, but also regulating the balance between vegetative and reproductive growth. These results may provide important information for further understanding of the evolution and function of PEBP genes in pears.

Highlights

Phosphatidylethanolamine-binding proteins (PEBPs) are named for their evolutionarily conserved phosphatidylethanolamine-binding domains and widely found in plants, animals and yeast (Chautard et al, 2004; Leeggangers et al, 2018; Sun et al, 2018)
Genome-wide identification of PEBP genes Based on a genome-wide analysis, 24 PEBP genes were identified in pears, of which 10 PEBP genes were from Pyrus bretschneideri genome, 5 PEBP genes were from P. communis genome and 9 PEBP genes were from the Pyrus betuleafolia genome
We identified 10, 5 and 9 PEBP genes from genomes of Pyrus bretschneideri, Pyrus communis and Pyrus betuleafolia, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Phosphatidylethanolamine-binding proteins (PEBPs) are named for their evolutionarily conserved phosphatidylethanolamine-binding domains and widely found in plants, animals and yeast (Chautard et al, 2004; Leeggangers et al, 2018; Sun et al, 2018). The PEBP genes family is mainly divided into three subfamilies, FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT)-like, TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1)-like and MOTHER OF FT AND TFL1 (MFT)-like (Li et al, 2015). MFT-like is the ancestor of the FT-like and TFL1-like subfamilies and is not found in moss and lycopodium. FT/TFL1 homologous genes appeared along with the evolution of seed plants. FT/TFL1-like gene plays an important role in the transformation process of seed plants from vegetative to reproductive growth (Karlgren et al, 2011). Many PEBP family members have been identified in several plant species, including Arabidopsis (Peng, Hu & Yang, 2015), maize (Danilevskaya et al, 2008), cotton

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