Identification of SNAT Family Genes Suggests GhSNAT3D Functional Reponse to Melatonin Synthesis Under Salinity Stress in Cotton.

Yuexin Zhang,Maohua Dai,Xuke Lu,Chao Chen,Xiugui Chen,Xixian Feng,Kesong Ni,Yapeng Fan,Junjuan Wang,Jing Wang,Cun Rui,Shuai Wang,Hong Zhang,Lanjie Zhao,Lixue Guo,Delong Wang,Liangqing Sun,Wuwei Ye,Nan Xu

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.843814

Abstract

Serotonin N-acetyltransferase (SNAT) is a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of melatonin, and plays an important role in the regulation of melatonin synthesis. The study of SNAT is of great significance to understand the function of melatonin. In this study, we analyzed the structural characteristics, phylogenetic relationship, gene structure, expression pattern, evolutionary relationship and stress response of the members of the SNAT gene family in upland cotton through bioinformatics. A putative Serotonin n-acetyltransferase gene GhSNAT3D was identified, and preliminarily function of GhSNAT3D was verified by virus-induced gene silencing. We identified a total of 52 SNAT genes in the whole genome of G. hirsutum, and part of the GhSNATs were regulated by exogenous melatonin. The content of melatonin, antioxidant enzyme activity and Ca2+ content of GhSNAT3D gene silenced plants decreased, and the salt tolerance of GhSNAT3D gene silenced plants was reduced. Exogenous melatonin supplementation restored the salt tolerance of GhSNAT3D gene silenced plants. GhSNAT3D may interact with GhSNAT25D and ASMT to regulate melatonin synthesis. This study provided an important basis for further study on the regulation of melatonin in cotton against abiotic stress.

Highlights

A hormone from the pineal gland of cattle in 1958 that caused frog skin to fade was named melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptophane) (Lerner et al, 1958)
A total of 52 Serotonin N-acetyltransferase (SNAT) genes were identified in the whole upland cotton genome, which encoded protein sequences ranging from 157 (GhSNAT1A, GhSNAT1D) to 610 (GhSNAT4A) amino acids
This study focuses on the analysis of SNAT in upland cotton, with the aim of understanding the evolutionary relationship of the cotton gene family, gene family expansion, selection pressure and expression to various abiotic stresses

Summary

Introduction

A hormone from the pineal gland of cattle in 1958 that caused frog skin to fade was named melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxy-tryptophane) (Lerner et al, 1958). Melatonin is a tryptophan derived metabolite widely found in plants and animals (Kanwar et al, 2018). Melatonin as an antioxidant has been reported to control ROS and lipid peroxidation in animal tissues (Reiter et al, 2014). In 1995, two groups of scientists simultaneously discovered the presence of melatonin in vascular plants, opening the door to the study of plant melatonin (Dubbels et al, 1995; Hattori et al, 1995), subsequent studies have shown that melatonin is widely present in plants (Blask et al, 2004). Melatonin is involved in a variety of physiological functions in plants, including seed germination, growth, rooting, photosynthesis and stress resistance. It is considered to be a multiregulatory molecule and may play a major role in plant regulation (Arnao and Hernandez-Ruiz, 2019)

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