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Unique to plants, growth regulatory factors (GRFs) play important roles in plant growth and reproduction. This study investigated the evolutionary and functional characteristics associated with plant growth. Using genome-wide analysis of 15 plant species, 173 members of the GRF family were identified and phylogenetically categorized into six groups. All members contained WRC and QLQ conserved domains, and the family’s expansion largely depended on segmental duplication. The promoter region of the GRF gene family mainly contained four types of cis-acting elements (light-responsive elements, development-related elements, hormone-responsive elements, and environmental stress-related elements) that are mainly related to gene expression levels. Functional divergence analysis revealed that changes in amino acid site evolution rate played a major role in the differentiation of the GRF gene family, with ten significant sites identified. Six significant sites were identified for positive selection. Moreover, the four groups of coevolutionary sites identified may play a key role in regulating the transcriptional activation of the GRF protein. Expression profiles revealed that GRF genes were generally highly expressed in young plant tissues and had tissue or organ expression specificity, demonstrating their functional conservation with distinct divergence. The results of these sequence and expression analyses are expected to provide molecular evolutionary and functional references for the plant GRF gene family.

KNOTTED-like homeodomain (KNOX) genes are transcriptional regulators that play an important role in morphogenesis. In the present study, a comparative analysis was performed to investigate the molecular evolution of the characteristics of the KNOX gene family in 10 different plant species. We identified 129 KNOX gene family members, which were categorized into two subfamilies based on multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree reconstruction. Several segmental duplication pairs were found, indicating that different species share a common expansion model. Functional divergence analysis identified the 15 and 52 amino acid sites with significant changes in evolutionary rates and amino acid physicochemical properties as functional divergence sites. Additional selection analysis showed that 14 amino acid sites underwent positive selection during evolution, and two groups of co-evolutionary amino acid sites were identified by Coevolution Analysis using Protein Sequences software. These sites could play critical roles in the molecular evolution of the KNOX gene family in these species. In addition, the expression profiles of KNOX duplicated genes demonstrated functional divergence. Taken together, these results provide novel insights into the structural and functional evolution of the KNOX gene family.

GATA transcription factor genes participate in plant growth, development, morphogenesis, and stress response. In this study, we carried out a comprehensive genome-wide analysis of wheat GATA transcription factor genes to reveal their molecular evolutionary characteristics and involvement in salt and drought tolerance. In total, 79 TaGATA genes containing a conserved GATA domain were identified in the wheat genome, which were classified into four subfamilies. Collinear analysis indicated that fragment duplication plays an important role in the amplification of the wheat GATA gene family. Functional disproportionation analysis between subfamilies found that both type I and type II functional divergence simultaneously occurs in wheat GATA genes, which might result in functional differentiation of the TaGATA gene family. Transcriptional expression analysis showed that TaGATA genes generally have a high expression level in leaves and in response to drought and salt stresses. Overexpression of TaGATA62 and TaGATA73 genes significantly enhanced the drought and salt tolerance of yeast and Arabidopsis. Protein–protein docking indicated that TaGATAs can enhance drought and salt tolerance by interacting between the DNA-binding motif of GATA transcription factors and photomorphogenesis-related protein TaCOP9-5A. Our results provided a base for further understanding the molecular evolution and functional characterization of the plant GATA gene family in response to abiotic stresses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The analyses of protein synthesis, accumulation and regulation during grain development in wheat are more complex because of its larger genome size compared to model plants such as Arabidopsis and rice. In this study, grains from two wheat cultivars Jimai 20 and Zhoumai 16 with different gluten quality properties were harvested at five development stages, and were used to displayed variable expression patterns of grain proteins. Results Proteome characterization during grain development in Chinese bread wheat cultivars Jimai 20 and Zhoumai 16 with different quality properties was investigated by 2-DE and tandem MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS. Identification of 117 differentially accumulated protein spots representing 82 unique proteins and five main expression patterns enabled a chronological description of wheat grain formation. Significant proteome expression differences between the two cultivars were found; these included 14 protein spots that accumulated in both cultivars but with different patterns and 27 cultivar-different spots. Among the cultivar-different protein spots, 14 accumulated in higher abundance in Jimai 20 than in Zhoumai 16, and included NAD-dependent isocitrate dehydrogenase, triticin precursor, LMW-s glutenin subunit and replication factor C-like protein. These proteins are likely to be associated with superior gluten quality. In addition, some proteins such as class II chitinase and peroxidase 1 with isoforms in developing grains were shown to be phosphorylated by Pro-Q Diamond staining and phosphorprotein site prediction. Phosphorylation could have important roles in wheat grain development. qRT-PCR analysis demonstrated that transcriptional and translational expression patterns of many genes were significantly different. Conclusions Wheat grain proteins displayed variable expression patterns at different developmental stages and a considerable number of protein spots showed differential accumulation between two cultivars. Differences in seed storage proteins were considered to be related to different quality performance of the flour from these wheat cultivars. Some proteins with isoforms were phosphorylated, and this may reflect their importance in grain development. Our results provide new insights into proteome characterization during grain development in different wheat genotypes.

Abstract Background Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops for human beings, with seeds being the tissue of highly economic value. Various morphogenetic and metabolic processes are exclusively associated with seed maturation. The goal of this study was to screen and identify genes specifically expressed in the developing seed of wheat with an integrative utilization of digital differential display (DDD) and available online microarray databases. Results A total of 201 unigenes were identified as the results of DDD screening and microarray database searching. The expressions of 6 of these were shown to be seed-specific by qRT-PCR analysis. Further GO enrichment analysis indicated that seed-specific genes were mainly associated with defense response, response to stress, multi-organism process, pathogenesis, extracellular region, nutrient reservoir activity, enzyme inhibitor activity, antioxidant activity and oxidoreductase activity. A comparison of this set of genes with the rice (Oryza sativa) genome was also performed and approximately three-fifths of them have rice counterparts. Between the counterparts, around 63% showed similar expression patterns according to the microarray data. Conclusions In conclusion, the DDD screening combined with microarray data analysis is an effective strategy for the identification of seed-specific expressed genes in wheat. These seed-specific genes screened during this study will provide valuable information for further studies about the functions of these genes in wheat.

Abstract Background Multiple proteins containing BURP domain have been identified in many different plant species, but not in any other organisms. To date, the molecular function of the BURP domain is still unknown, and no systematic analysis and expression profiling of the gene family in soybean (Glycine max) has been reported. Results In this study, multiple bioinformatics approaches were employed to identify all the members of BURP family genes in soybean. A total of 23 BURP gene types were identified. These genes had diverse structures and were distributed on chromosome 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 18. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that these BURP family genes could be classified into 5 subfamilies, and one of which defines a new subfamily, BURPV. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of transcript levels showed that 15 of the 23 genes had no expression specificity; 7 of them were specifically expressed in some of the tissues; and one of them was not expressed in any of the tissues or organs studied. The results of stress treatments showed that 17 of the 23 identified BURP family genes responded to at least one of the three stress treatments; 6 of them were not influenced by stress treatments even though a stress related cis-element was identified in the promoter region. No stress related cis-elements were found in promoter region of any BURPV member. However, qRT-PCR results indicated that all members from BURPV responded to at least one of the three stress treatments. More significantly, the members from the RD22-like subfamily showed no tissue-specific expression and they all responded to each of the three stress treatments. Conclusions We have identified and classified all the BURP domain-containing genes in soybean. Their expression patterns in different tissues and under different stress treatments were detected using qRT-PCR. 15 out of 23 BURP genes in soybean had no tissue-specific expression, while 17 out of them were stress-responsive. The data provided an insight into the evolution of the gene family and suggested that many BURP family genes may be important for plants responding to stress conditions.

Protein disulfide isomerases (PDI) are involved in catalyzing protein disulfide bonding and isomerization in the endoplasmic reticulum and functions as a chaperone to inhibit the aggregation of misfolded proteins. Brachypodium distachyon is a widely used model plant for temperate grass species such as wheat and barley. In this work, we report the first molecular characterization, phylogenies, and expression profiles of PDI and PDI-like (PDIL) genes in B. distachyon in different tissues under various abiotic stresses. Eleven PDI and PDIL genes in the B. distachyon genome by in silico identification were evenly distributed across all five chromosomes. The plant PDI family has three conserved motifs that are involved in catalyzing protein disulfide bonding and isomerization, but a different exon/intron structural organization showed a high degree of structural differentiation. Two pairs of genes (BdPDIL4-1 and BdPDIL4-2; BdPDIL7-1 and BdPDIL7-2) contained segmental duplications, indicating each pair originated from one progenitor. Promoter analysis showed that Brachypodium PDI family members contained important cis-acting regulatory elements involved in seed storage protein synthesis and diverse stress response. All Brachypodium PDI genes investigated were ubiquitously expressed in different organs, but differentiation in expression levels among different genes and organs was clear. BdPDIL1-1 and BdPDIL5-1 were expressed abundantly in developing grains, suggesting that they have important roles in synthesis and accumulation of seed storage proteins. Diverse treatments (drought, salt, ABA, and H2O2) induced up- and down-regulated expression of Brachypodium PDI genes in seedling leaves. Interestingly, BdPDIL1-1 displayed significantly up-regulated expression following all abiotic stress treatments, indicating that it could be involved in multiple stress responses. Our results provide new insights into the structural and functional characteristics of the plant PDI gene family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]