Isolation and expression analysis of LEA genes in peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.)

• Published in: Journal of biosciences Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 223 - 228
• Main Authors: Su, Lei, Zhao, Chuan-Zhi, Bi, Yu-Ping, Wan, Shu-Bo, Xia, Han, Wang, Xing-Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: India Springer-Verlag 01.06.2011; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Arachis - genetics; Arachis - growth & development; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brief Communication; Cell Biology; Developmental stages; Drought; Embryonic growth stage; Expressed Sequence Tags; Flowers - genetics; Flowers - metabolism; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Legumes; Life Sciences; Microbiology; Molecular Sequence Data; Peanuts; Plant biology; Plant Proteins - classification; Plant Proteins - genetics; Plant Roots - genetics; Plant Roots - metabolism; Plant Sciences; Plant Stems - genetics; Plant Stems - metabolism; Proteins; Seeds; Seeds - genetics; Seeds - metabolism; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Zoology; late embryogenesis abundant protein; L; ESTs; cDNA library
• ISSN: 0250-5991; 0973-7138
• DOI: 10.1007/s12038-011-9058-5

Late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein family is a large protein family that includes proteins accumulated at late stages of seed development or in vegetative tissues in response to drought, salinity, cold stress and exogenous application of abscisic acid. In order to isolate peanut genes, an expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing project was carried out using a peanut seed cDNA library. From 6258 ESTs, 19 LEA-encoding genes were identified and could be classified into eight distinct groups. Expression of these genes in seeds at different developmental stages and in various peanut tissues was analysed by semi-quantitative RT-PCR. The results showed that expression levels of LEA genes were generally high in seeds. Some LEA protein genes were expressed at a high level in non-seed tissues such as root, stem, leaf, flower and gynophore. These results provided valuable information for the functional and regulatory studies on peanut LEA genes.