Abstract

The APETALA2/Ethylene-Responsive factor (AP2/ERF) gene family is a large plant-specific transcription factor family, which plays important roles in regulating plant growth and development. A role in starch synthesis is among the multiple functions of this family of transcription factors. Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the most important cereals for starch production. However, there are limited data on the contribution of AP2 transcription factors in barley. In this study, we used the recently published barley genome database (Morex) to identify 185 genes of the HvAP2/ERF family. Compared with previous work, we identified 64 new genes in the HvAP2/ERF gene family and corrected some previously misannotated and duplicated genes. After phylogenetic analysis, HvAP2/ERF genes were classified into four subfamilies and 18 subgroups. Expression profiling showed different patterns of spatial and temporal expression for HvAP2/ERF genes. Most of the 12 HvAP2/ERF genes analyzed using quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction had similar expression patterns when compared with those of starch synthase genes in barley, except for HvAP2-18 and HvERF-73. HvAP2-18 is homologous to OsRSR1, which negatively regulates the synthesis of rice starch. Luciferase reporter gene, and yeast one-hybrid assays showed that HvAP2-18 bound the promoter of AGP-S and SBE1 in vitro. Thus, HvAP2-18 might be an interesting candidate gene to further explore the mechanisms involved in the regulation of starch synthesis in barley.

Highlights

  • Transcription factors (TFs) bind to the cis-acting elements of their target genes and play a key role in gene transcription regulation

  • We identified a total of 185 non-redundant HvAP2/ERF genes in Morex via genome-wide search (Supplementary Table 1)

  • The APETALA2/Ethylene-Responsive factor (AP2/ERF) family of TFs has a crucial role in regulating starch synthesis, as was identified in rice (Fu and Xue, 2010) and wheat

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Summary

Introduction

Transcription factors (TFs) bind to the cis-acting elements of their target genes and play a key role in gene transcription regulation. The APETALA2/Ethylene-Responsive Factor (AP2/ERF) superfamily includes the AP2 (APETALA2), ERF (ethylene-responsive factors), and RAV (related to ABI3/VP) gene families and is one of the largest groups of TFs in plants. TFs of the AP2/ERF superfamily contain an AP2 DNA-binding domain (Riechmann and Meyerowitz, 1998; Sakuma et al, 2002). The AP2 subfamily members contain two AP2/ERF domains lacking a conserved WLG motif. The ERF family is further split up into two subfamilies according to the DNA sequence bound: ERF and CBF/DREB (Sakuma et al, 2002). Proteins encoded by genes from the ERF subfamily bind to the core motif AGCCGCC (Zhou et al, 1997), whereas the CBF/DREB subfamily contains C-repeats recognizing the cis-acting element, A/GCCGAC (Yamaguchi-Shinozaki and Shinozaki, 1994)

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