Analysis of the Aging-Related AP2/ERF Transcription Factor Gene Family in

Overview

Journal Int J Mol Sci

Publisher MDPI

Specialties Biochemistry
Chemistry
Molecular Biology

Date 2024 Aug 10

PMID 39125596

Authors

Gongwei Chen

Tianqi Shao

Yixiao Zhou

Fengyuan Chen

Dandan Zhang

Heng Gu

Yuanzheng Yue

Lianggui Wang

Xiulian Yang

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Ethylene-Responsive Factor (ERF) is a key element found in the middle and lower reaches of the ethylene signal transduction pathway. It is widely distributed in plants and plays important roles in plant growth and development, hormone signal transduction, and various stress processes. Although there is research on AP/ERF family members, research on AP2/ERF in is lacking. Thus, in this work, AP2/ERF in was extensively and comprehensively analyzed. A total of 298 genes encoding proteins with complete AP2/ERF domains were identified. Based on the number of AP2/ERF domains and the similarity among amino acid sequences between AP2/ERF proteins from and , the 298 putative proteins were divided into four different families, including AP2 (45), ERF (247), RAV (5), and SOLOIST (1). In addition, the exon-intron structure characteristics of these putative genes and the conserved protein motifs of their encoded proteins were analyzed, and the results were found to be consistent with those of the population classification. A tissue-specific analysis showed the spatiotemporal expression of in the stems and leaves of at different developmental stages. Specifically, 21 genes were not expressed in any tissue, while high levels of expression were found for 25 genes in several tissues, 60 genes in the roots, 34 genes in the stems, 37 genes in young leaves, 34 genes in old leaves, 32 genes in the early flowering stage, 18 genes in the full flowering stage, and 37 genes in the late flowering stage. Quantitative RT-PCR experiments showed that and 110b had the highest expression levels at the full-bloom stage (S4), and this gradually decreased with the senescence of petals. The expression of decreased first and then increased, while the expression levels of and increased constantly. This indicated that these genes may play roles in flower senescence and the ethylene response. In the subsequent subcellular localization experiments, we found that ERF1-4 was localized in the nucleus, indicating that it was expressed in the nucleus. In yeast self-activation experiments, we found that , , and had self-activation activity. Overall, these results suggest that may have the function of regulating petal senescence in

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