Global Analysis of UDP Glucose Pyrophosphorylase (UDPGP) Gene Family in Plants: Conserved Evolution Involved in Cell Death

Shuai Liu; Hua Zhong; Qiang Wang; Caixiang Liu; Ting Li; Zhaohua Peng; Yangsheng Li; Hongyu Zhang; Jianglin Liao; Yingjin Huang; Zhaohai Wang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.681719

Global Analysis of UDP Glucose Pyrophosphorylase (UDPGP) Gene Family in Plants: Conserved Evolution Involved in Cell Death

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Jun 10:12:681719. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.681719. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Shuai Liu¹, Hua Zhong², Qiang Wang^{3

4}, Caixiang Liu⁵, Ting Li⁶, Zhaohua Peng¹, Yangsheng Li², Hongyu Zhang^{3

4}, Jianglin Liao^{3

4}, Yingjin Huang^{3

4}, Zhaohai Wang^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS, United States.
² State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, Key Laboratory for Research and Utilization of Heterosis in Indica Rice, Ministry of Agriculture, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology, Ecology and Genetic Breeding, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Agriculture Responding to Climate Change, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, National Centre for Magnetic Resonance in Wuhan, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Innovation Academy of Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China.
⁶ Youth League Committee, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China.

Abstract

UDP glucose pyrophosphorylase (UDPGP) family genes have been reported to play essential roles in cell death or individual survival. However, a systematic analysis on UDPGP gene family has not been performed yet. In this study, a total of 454 UDPGP proteins from 76 different species were analyzed. The analyses of the phylogenetic tree and orthogroups divided UDPGPs into three clades, including UDP-N-acetylglucosamine pyrophosphorylase (UAP), UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (UGP, containing UGP-A and UGP-B), and UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase (USP). The evolutionary history of the UDPGPs indicated that the members of UAP, USP, and UGP-B were relatively conserved while varied in UGP-A. Homologous sequences of UGP-B and USP were found only in plants. The expression profile of UDPGP genes in Oryza sativa was mainly motivated under jasmonic acid (JA), abscisic acid (ABA), cadmium, and cold treatments, indicating that UDPGPs may play an important role in plant development and environment endurance. The key amino acids regulating the activity of UDPGPs were analyzed, and almost all of them were located in the NB-loop, SB-loop, or conserved motifs. Analysis of the natural variants of UDPGPs in rice revealed that only a few missense mutants existed in coding sequences (CDSs), and most of the resulting variations were located in the non-motif sites, indicating the conserved structure and function of UDPGPs in the evolution. Furthermore, alternative splicing may play a key role in regulating the activity of UDPGPs. The spatial structure prediction, enzymatic analysis, and transgenic verification of UAP isoforms illustrated that the loss of N- and C-terminal sequences did not affect the overall 3D structures, but the N- and C-terminal sequences are important for UAP genes to maintain their enzymatic activity. These results revealed a conserved UDPGP gene family and provided valuable information for further deep functional investigation of the UDPGP gene family in plants.

Keywords: UDP glucose pyrophosphorylase family; UDP-N-acetylglucosamine pyrophosphorylase; UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylase; UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase; alternative splicing; conserved evolution.