Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of the WRKY Gene Family in Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi under Diverse Abiotic Stress

• Published in: International journal of molecular sciences Vol. 23; no. 8; p. 4225
• Main Authors: Zhang, Caijuan, Wang, Wentao, Wang, Donghao, Hu, Suying, Zhang, Qian, Wang, Zhezhi, Cui, Langjun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 11.04.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Amino acids; Bioinformatics; Chromosomes; Drought; expression patterns; Flowers; Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; gene family; Genes; Genetic analysis; Genetic structure; Genomes; Herbal medicine; Localization; Metabolites; Multigene Family; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Plant Proteins - metabolism; Proteins; Scutellaria baicalensis; Scutellaria baicalensis - genetics; Scutellaria baicalensis - metabolism; Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi; Secondary metabolites; Signal transduction; Stress, Physiological - genetics; Synteny; Transcription factors; Transcription Factors - metabolism; Transcriptomes; WRKY; WRKY; Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi; gene family; expression patterns; abiotic stress
• ISSN: 1422-0067; 1661-6596; 1422-0067
• DOI: 10.3390/ijms23084225

The WRKY gene family is an important inducible regulatory factor in plants, which has been extensively studied in many model plants. It has progressively become the focus of investigation for the secondary metabolites of medicinal plants. Currently, there is no systematic analysis of the WRKY gene family in Georgi. For this study, a systematic and comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of the WRKY gene family was conducted based on the genomic data of . A total of 77 WRKY members were identified and 75 were mapped onto nine chromosomes, respectively. Their encoded WRKY proteins could be classified into three subfamilies: Group I, Group II (II-a, II-b, II-c, II-d, II-e), and Group III, based on the characteristics of the amino acid sequences of the WRKY domain and genetic structure. Syntenic analysis revealed that there were 35 pairs of repetitive fragments. Furthermore, the transcriptome data of roots, stems, leaves, and flowers showed that the spatial expression profiles of WRKYs were different. qRT-PCR analysis revealed that 11 stress-related WRKYs exhibited specific expression patterns under diverse treatments. In addition, sub cellular localization analysis indicated that and were localized in nucleus. This study is the first to report the identification and characterization of the WRKY gene family in , which is valuable for the further exploration of the biological function of SbWRKYs. It also provides valuable bioinformatics data for and provides a reference for assessing the medicinal properties of the genus.