Exploring the roles of ZmARM gene family in maize development and abiotic stress response

Zhijia Yu; Xiaopeng Sun; Ziqi Chen; Qi Wang; Chuang Zhang; Xiangguo Liu; Weilin Wu; Yuejia Yin

doi:10.7717/peerj.16254

Exploring the roles of ZmARM gene family in maize development and abiotic stress response

PeerJ. 2023 Oct 25:11:e16254. doi: 10.7717/peerj.16254. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Zhijia Yu^{1

2}, Xiaopeng Sun³, Ziqi Chen², Qi Wang², Chuang Zhang², Xiangguo Liu^{1

2}, Weilin Wu¹, Yuejia Yin²

Affiliations

¹ College of Agriculture, Yanbian University, Jilin, China.
² Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Changchun, China.
³ Huazhong Agricultural University, National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Armadillo (ARM) was a gene family important to plants, with crucial roles in regulating plant growth, development, and stress responses. However, the properties and functions of ARM family members in maize had received limited attention. Therefore, this study employed bioinformatics methods to analyze the structure and evolution of ARM-repeat protein family members in maize. The maize (Zea mays L.) genome contains 56 ARM genes distributed over 10 chromosomes, and collinearity analysis indicated 12 pairs of linkage between them. Analysis of the physicochemical properties of ARM proteins showed that most of these proteins were acidic and hydrophilic. According to the number and evolutionary analysis of the ARM genes, the ARM genes in maize can be divided into eight subgroups, and the gene structure and conserved motifs showed similar compositions in each group. The findings shed light on the significant roles of 56 ZmARM domain genes in development and abiotic stress, particularly drought stress. RNA-Seq and qRT-PCR analysis revealed that drought stress exerts an influence on specific members of the ZmARM family, such as ZmARM4, ZmARM12, ZmARM34 and ZmARM36. The comprehensive profiling of these genes in the whole genome, combined with expression analysis, establishes a foundation for further exploration of plant gene function in the context of abiotic stress and reproductive development.

Keywords: Abiotic stress; Armadillo; Development; Maize (Zea mays L.).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Gene Expression Profiling*
Plant Proteins / genetics
Promoter Regions, Genetic
Stress, Physiological / genetics
Zea mays* / genetics

Substances

Plant Proteins

Grants and funding

This work was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 32171928), the Jilin Provincial Agricultural Innovation Project (No. CXGC2022DX008), the Jilin Provincial Agricultural Innovation Project (No. CXGC2023RCY006), the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of Jilin Province (No. CXGC2020RCG007), the Industrial Technology Research and development Project of Jilin Province (No. 2022C037-3) and the Technological innovation and breeding application of gene editing of major crops (No. KYJF2023DX006). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.