Biodiv Sci ›› 2022, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (6): 21545.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2021545

• Original Papers: Genetic Diversity • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Analysis of the molecular evolution of the PEBP gene family in cruciferous plants

Yongguang Li1,2, Hui Ren1, Yingjie Zhang1, Ruining Li2, Hao Ai2, Xianzhong Huang2,3,*()   

  1. 1. College of Life Sciences, Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang 832003
    2. College of Agriculture, Anhui Science and Technology University, Fengyang, Anhui 233100
    3. Plant Genomics Laboratory, College of Life Sciences, Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang 832003
  • Received:2021-12-30 Accepted:2022-03-10 Online:2022-06-20 Published:2022-03-11
  • Contact: Xianzhong Huang

Abstract:

Aims: In recent years, the exponential growth of genomic data across diverse plant species provides unprecedented comprehensive understanding of the inheritance and variation of plant environment adaptation traits. The phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) plays crucial roles in flowering transition and architectural establishment of plants, a topic of extreme interest in plant biology research. However, comparative genome analysis of the PEBP gene family has not been performed using newly sequenced genome data, which restricts the study of its evolution at the molecular level. To explore its molecular evolution mechanism, we performed comparative genomics analysis of PEBP gene family in Cruciferae plants in this study.
Methods: We utilized the methods of genome-wide identification, characterization, and evolution analysis of PEBP genes from seven Cruciferae plants: Arabidopsis thaliana, A. lyrata, A. pumila, Camelina sativa, Brassica oleracea, B. rapa, and B. napus.
Results: Our results indicated that 91 PEBP genes were identified from seven plant species, and phylogenetic analysis suggested that they were categorized into five subfamilies: MFT, FT/TSF, TFL1, CEN, and BFT. Gene structure analysis indicated that the introns of CEN genes in B. oleracea, B. rapa and B. napus were significantly longer than those in the other four species. Protein domain analysis demonstrated that MFT lacks motif 2 and TFL1 has one more motif 8 than the other four subfamilies. Selection pressure analysis revealed that the PEBP genes form seven plant species were subject to strong purification selection, of which, the TFL1 subfamily was the weakest in purification selection. Collinearity analysis indicated that the PEBP genes in Cruciferous expanded in varying degrees with the ancient polyploid events, and all genes except CEN were partially lost after expansion. In addition, when overexpression of the A. pumila MFT gene in A. thaliana, the germination rates of transgenic seeds were significantly lower than that in wild type under abiotic stresses, suggesting that the functions of MFT were conserved in the regulation of seed germination.
Conclusion: This study lays the foundation for the research of the evolutionary characterizations and biological functions of PEBP genes in cruciferous plants.

Key words: ephemeral plant, Arabidopsis pumila, MFT, gene amplification, germination rate