Genome-Wide Analysis of the WRKY Transcription Factor Gene Family and Their Response to Salt Stress in Rubber Tree

• Published in: Tropical plant biology Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 22 - 33
• Main Authors: Nan, Hong, Lin, Yang-Lei, Liu, Jin, Huang, Hui, Li, Wei, Gao, Li-zhi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.03.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Divergence; Evolution; Evolutionary genetics; Gene duplication; Gene expression; Genes; Genomes; Life Sciences; Phylogeny; Plant Breeding/Biotechnology; Plant Ecology; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant growth; Plant Sciences; Protein structure; Reproduction (copying); Reverse transcription; Rubber; Rubber trees; Subgroups; Synteny; Transcription factors; Transgenics; Rubber tree; Phylogenetic analysis; Expression divergence; Genomic synteny; WRKY transcription factor
• ISSN: 1935-9756; 1935-9764
• DOI: 10.1007/s12042-020-09268-x

The multigene family WRKY is plant-specific transcription factors, which is involved in numerous aspects of plant growth and development. Here, we report a genome-wide search for the rubber tree WRKY ( HbWRKY ) genes and their expression profiles at various tissues including latexes. We also present a comprehensive overview of whole HbWRKY gene family, including gene structure, chromosomal locations, conserved protein domains, gene duplications and phylogenetic inferences. We identify a total of 108 full-length HbWRKY genes, which were classified into the three major subgroups. The genome-scale syntenic analysis showed that WGDs might have played a major role in the evolution of the HbWRKY gene family. Our further real-time reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) experiments validated that the HbWRKY genes are divergently expressed and gene expression divergence seemingly existed among the duplicated WRKY genes, suggesting a fundamentally functional divergence of the duplicated WRKY paralogs in rubber tree. We also investigated the gene expression profiling of the HbWRKY s under salt stress, to which the majority of genes differentially responded. This study acquires a new insight into the evolution of the HbWRKY s, which will help further functional characterization of theses candidate genes in rubber tree.