Abstract
Prunus mume is an important ornamental woody plant that grows in tropical and subtropical regions. Freezing stress can adversely impact plant productivity and limit the expansion of geographical locations. Understanding cold-responsive genes could potentially bring about the development of new ways to enhance plant freezing tolerance. Members of the serine/threonine protein kinase (CIPK) gene family play important roles in abiotic stress. However, the function of CIPK genes in P. mume remains poorly defined. A total of 16 CIPK genes were first identified in P. mume. A systematic phylogenetic analysis was conducted in which 253 CIPK genes from 12 species were divided into three groups. Furthermore, we analysed the chromosomal locations, molecular structures, motifs and domains of CIPK genes in P. mume. All of the CIPK sequences had NAF domains and promoter regions containing cis-acting regulatory elements of the related stress response. Three PmCIPK genes were identified as Pmu-miR172/167-targeted sites. Transcriptome data showed that most PmCIPK genes presented tissue-specific and time-specific expression profiles. Nine genes were highly expressed in flower buds in December and January, and 12 genes were up-regulated in stems in winter. The expression levels of 12 PmCIPK genes were up-regulated during cold stress treatment confirmed by qRT-PCR. Our study improves understanding of the role of the PmCIPK gene family in the low temperature response in woody plants and provides key candidate genes and a theoretical basis for cold resistance molecular-assisted breeding technology in P. mume.
Highlights
Low temperature damage is an environmental stress that severely limits the geographic distribution and cultivation range of perennial plants (Weiser, 1970)
Identification of CIPK genes in P. mume Based on the HMMER search using the CIPK model, 16 non-redundant PmCIPKs were identified in the P. mume genome, and 194 CIPKs were identified in the other 10 species from the Rosaceae genome
PmCIPK genes were unevenly distributed in the P. mume genome
Summary
Low temperature damage is an environmental stress that severely limits the geographic distribution and cultivation range of perennial plants (Weiser, 1970). A number of functional genes of the cold response have been confirmed in plants, and some of these genes are closely related to Ca2+ (e.g., C-repeat binding factor, CBF). The large number of probable SCaBP/CBLPKS/CIPK combinations indicate that the Ca2+/SOS3/SOS2 signalling pathway is widely used in plants (Zhu, 2001, 2002). Calcineurin B-like proteins (CBLs) form functional complexes with CBL-interacting protein kinases (CIPKs, SnRK3s) to relay plant responses to many environmental signals and to regulate ion fluxes (Hashimoto et al, 2012), and the CBL-CIPK complexes perform important functions in the signal transduction pathways in which Ca2+ is a second messenger, especially for various non-biological signals that regulate ion transporter activity (Luan, 2009; Zhu, 2016). In Populus euphratica, PeCBL/PeCIPK complexes have been identified and shown to be functional in the regulation of Na+/K+ homeostasis (Zhang et al, 2013a)
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