Genome-wide identification of ABA receptor PYL/RCAR gene family and their response to cold stress in Medicago sativa L

Lili Nian; Xiaoning Zhang; Xianfeng Yi; Xuelu Liu; Noor Ul Ain; Yingbo Yang; Xiaodan Li; Fasih Ullah Haider; Xiaolin Zhu

doi:10.1007/s12298-021-01066-3

Genome-wide identification of ABA receptor PYL/RCAR gene family and their response to cold stress in Medicago sativa L

Physiol Mol Biol Plants. 2021 Sep;27(9):1979-1995. doi: 10.1007/s12298-021-01066-3. Epub 2021 Sep 28.

Authors

Lili Nian¹, Xiaoning Zhang¹, Xianfeng Yi², Xuelu Liu^{1

3}, Noor Ul Ain⁴, Yingbo Yang³, Xiaodan Li⁵, Fasih Ullah Haider³, Xiaolin Zhu⁶

Affiliations

¹ College of Forestry, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070 China.
² The Animal Husbandry Research Institute of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530001 China.
³ College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070 China.
⁴ Centre of Genomics and Biotechnology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Jinshan, Fuzhou, 350002 Fujian China.
⁵ College of Management, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070 China.
⁶ College of Agronomy, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, 730070 China.

Abstract

Abscisic acid (ABA) is an important phytohormone involved in plant growth, plant development, and the protection of plants against abiotic stresses. PYL/RCAR (pyrabactin resistance/pyr1-like/regulatory components of ABA receptor) is the receptor protein of ABA and the core component of the ABA signal transduction network. The PYL gene family has been identified and analyzed in many species, however, there is no report about the research on the whole genome-wide identification of the alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) PYL gene family. Therefore, to explore the function of alfalfa PYL genes, 39 MsPYL genes were identified by analyzing the recently published genome of alfalfa. Using bioinformatics methods, we systematically analyzed the chromosome location, protein physicochemical properties, evolutionary relationship, conserved motifs, and response to low-temperature stress of the MsPYL family of alfalfa. The results showed that 39 alfalfa MsPYL genes were distributed on 24 chromosomes, and the analysis of gene duplication events showed that fragment duplication was predominant duplication in alfalfa MsPYL family gene expansion. The phylogenetic tree of MsPYL protein of alfalfa and the phylogenetic tree of PYL genes of 3 species show that the MsPYL gene family can be divided into 3 subfamilies, and the structures of the same subfamilies are relatively similar. The 39 MsPYL gene family members of alfalfa contain 10 Motifs. Motif1, Motif2, Motif3, and Motif5 are the conserved motifs shared by these genes; cis-regulatory elements in promoter regions indicate that regulatory elements related to transcription, cell cycle, development, hormone, and stress response are abundantly present in the MsPYL promoter sequences; Real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR analysis showed that the expression of MsPYL genes can be induced by low-temperature treatment. This study provides a reference for further exploring the structural and functional characterization of the alfalfa PYL gene family.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-021-01066-3.

Keywords: ABA receptor; Cold stress; Gene expression; Medicago sativa L.; PYL protein family; Phylogenetic tree.