Identification and expression analysis of maize NF-YA subunit genes

Mingyue Lv; Hongzhe Cao; Xue Wang; Kang Zhang; Helong Si; Jinping Zang; Jihong Xing; Jingao Dong

doi:10.7717/peerj.14306

Identification and expression analysis of maize NF-YA subunit genes

PeerJ. 2022 Nov 7:10:e14306. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14306. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Mingyue Lv^#^{1

2}, Hongzhe Cao^#^{1

2}, Xue Wang², Kang Zhang^{1

2}, Helong Si^{1

2}, Jinping Zang^{1

2}, Jihong Xing^{1

2}, Jingao Dong^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of North China Crop Improvement and Regulation, Hebei Agricultrual University, Baoding, Hebei, China.
² Hebei Key Laboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular Pathology, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding, Hebei, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

NF-YAs encode subunits of the nuclear factor-Y (NF-Y) gene family. NF-YAs represent a kind of conservative transcription factor in plants and are involved in plant growth and development, as well as resistance to biotic and abiotic stress. In this study, 16 maize (Zea mays) NF-YA subunit genes were identified using bioinformatics methods, and they were divided into three categories by a phylogenetic analysis. A conserved domain analysis showed that most contained a CCAAT-binding transcription factor (CBFB) _NF-YA domain. Maize NF-YA subunit genes showed very obvious tissue expression characteristics. The expression level of the NF-YA subunit genes significantly changed under different abiotic stresses, including Fusarium graminearum infection and salicylic acid (SA) or jasmonic acid (JA) treatments. After inoculation with Setosphaeria turcica and Cochliobolus heterostrophus, the lesion areas of nfya01 and nfya06 were significantly larger than that of B73, indicating that ZmNFYA01 and ZmNFYA06 positively regulated maize disease resistance. ZmNFYA01 and ZmNFYA06 may regulated maize disease resistance by affecting the transcription levels of ZmPRs. Thus, NF-YA subunit genes played important roles in promoting maize growth and development and resistance to stress. The results laid a foundation for clarifying the functions and regulatory mechanisms of NF-YA subunit genes in maize.

Keywords: Abiotic stress; Biological stress; Expression analysis; Maize; NF-YA subunit gene.

Publication types

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

MeSH terms

Disease Resistance* / genetics
Genes, Plant
Phylogeny
Transcription Factors / genetics
Zea mays* / genetics

Substances

Transcription Factors

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31901864), the Key Research and Development Projects of Hebei (19226503D), the Central Government Guides Local Science and Technology Development Projects (216Z6501G, 216Z6502G), the Research Project of Basic Scientific Research Business Fees in Provincial Universities of Hebei Province (KY2021043, KY2021044) and the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-02). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.