Abstract
Stress-associated proteins (SAPs) are a class of zinc finger proteins that confer tolerance to a variety of abiotic and biotic stresses in diverse plant species. However, in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), very little is known about the roles of SAP gene family members in regulating plant growth, development, and stress responses. In this study, a total of 12 SAP genes (named as CsSAP1-CsSAP12) were identified in the cucumber genome, which were unevenly distributed on six chromosomes. Gene duplication analysis detected one tandem duplication and two segmental duplication events. Phylogenetic analysis of SAP proteins from cucumber and other plants suggested that they could be divided into seven groups (sub-families), and proteins in the same group generally had the same arrangement of AN1 (ZnF-AN1) and A20 (ZnF-A20) domains. Most of the CsSAP genes were intronless and harbored a number of stress- and hormone-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. Tissue expression analysis showed that the CsSAP genes had a broad spectrum of expression in different tissues, and some of them displayed remarkable alteration in expression during fruit development. RT-qPCR results indicated that all the selected CsSAP genes displayed transcriptional responses to cold, drought, and salt stresses. These results enable the first comprehensive description of the SAP gene family in cucumber and lay a solid foundation for future research on the biological functions of CsSAP genes.
Highlights
Various abiotic stresses, such as salt, light intensity, drought, and extreme temperatures, are important causes of great damage to global crops by affecting their growth and reducing their average yield [1,2]
12 stress-associated proteins (SAPs) genes were identified in cucumber genome, and were named as CsSAP1-CsSAP12 based on their physical locations on the chromosomes (Table 1)
Genome-wide survey of SAP gene family composition has been performed in various plant species and there is a high variability in terms of the number of gene members
Summary
Various abiotic stresses, such as salt, light intensity, drought, and extreme temperatures (cold and heat), are important causes of great damage to global crops by affecting their growth and reducing their average yield [1,2]. In order to resist and adapt to various environmental stresses, plants have developed complex molecular mechanisms that regulate the transcriptional levels of a number of stress-related genes to further control the signaling networks involved in stress responses. Stress-associated proteins (SAPs), a kind of zinc finger proteins (ZFPs), have been widely recognized as key molecular factors participating in the mediation of plant development and stress responses [3,4]. SAP gene family composition has been well characterized in different plant species. A high diversity in gene numbers has been reported, which range from 14 members in Arabidopsis thaliana to 57 members in Brassica napus [5,6,7,8,9,10]. Previous reports have revealed that the classical SAP proteins comprise an N-terminal A20 (ZnF-A20) domain and/or a C-terminal AN1
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