WRKY transcription factors, originally isolated from plants contain one or two conserved WRKY domains, about 60 amino acid residues with the WRKYGQK sequence followed by a C2H2 or C2HC zinc finger motif. Evidence is accumulating to suggest that the WRKY proteins play significant roles in responses to biotic and abiotic stresses, and in development. In this research, we identified 102 putative WRKY genes from the rice genome and compared them with those from Arabidopsis. The WRKY genes from rice and Arabidopsis were divided into three groups with several subgroups on the basis of phylogenies and the basic structure of the WRKY domains (WDs). The phylogenetic trees generated from the WDs and the genes indicate that the WRKY gene family arose during evolution through duplication and that the dramatic amplification of rice WRKY genes in group III is due to tandem and segmental gene duplication compared with those of Arabidopsis. The result suggests that some of the rice WRKY genes in group III are evolutionarily more active than those in Arabidopsis, and may have specific roles in monocotyledonous plants. Further, it was possible to identify the presence of WRKY-like genes in protists (Giardia lamblia and Dictyostelium discoideum) and green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii through database research, demonstrating the ancient origin of the gene family. The results obtained by alignments of the WDs from different species and other analysis imply that domain gain and loss is a divergent force for expansion of the WRKY gene family, and that a rapid amplification of the WRKY genes predate the divergence of monocots and dicots. On the basis of these results, we believe that genes encoding a single WD may have been derived from the C-terminal WD of the genes harboring two WDs. The conserved intron splicing positions in the WDs of higher plants offer clues about WRKY gene evolution, annotation, and classification.

• Transcriptome analyses of human and murine reveal significant stage and speciesspecific differences across stages of terminal erythroid differentiation.• These transcriptomes provide a significant resource for understanding mechanisms of normal and perturbed erythropoiesis.We recently developed fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS)-based methods to purify morphologically and functionally discrete populations of cells, each representing specific stages of terminal erythroid differentiation. We used these techniques to obtain pure populations of both human and murine erythroblasts at distinct developmental stages. RNA was prepared from these cells and subjected to RNA sequencing analyses, creating unbiased, stage-specific transcriptomes. Tight clustering of transcriptomes from differing stages, even between biologically different replicates, validated the utility of the FACSbased assays. Bioinformatic analyses revealed that there were marked differences between differentiation stages, with both shared and dissimilar gene expression profiles defining each stage within transcriptional space. There were vast temporal changes in gene expression across the differentiation stages, with each stage exhibiting unique transcriptomes. Clustering and network analyses revealed that varying stage-specific patterns of expression observed across differentiation were enriched for genes of differing function. Numerous differences were present between human and murine transcriptomes, with significant variation in the global patterns of gene expression. These data provide a significant resource for studies of normal and perturbed erythropoiesis, allowing a deeper understanding of mechanisms of erythroid development in various inherited and acquired erythroid disorders. (Blood. 2014;123(22):3466-3477) IntroductionMammalian erythropoiesis is an excellent example of the complex changes in temporal, developmental, and differentiation stage-specific gene expression exhibited by a single cell type.1,2 In the mammalian embryo and fetus, erythroid cells have differing developmental origins, with the primitive erythroid cell lineage developing from yolk sac-derived erythroid progenitors, and the definitive cell lineage maturing from 2 different developmentally regulated stem and progenitor cell populations. [3][4][5][6] These cells have different programs of regulation, with variation in spatial, temporal, and site-specific differentiation.In the adult, mature erythrocytes are the terminally differentiated final cellular product derived from hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPC). HSPCs undergo a series of lineage choice fate decisions, with increasingly restricted potential, ultimately committing to the erythroid lineage and beginning erythropoiesis. Traditionally, erythropoiesis has been divided into 3 stages: early erythropoiesis, terminal erythroid differentiation, and reticulocyte maturation.2 Early erythropoiesis involves commitment of multi-lineage progenitors into erythroid progenitor cells, with proliferation and d...

Autophagy is a process that leads to the degradation of unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components and long-lived protein aggregates. Erythropoiesis is a branch of hematopoietic differentiation by which mature red blood cells (RBCs) are generated from multi-potential hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Autophagy plays a critical role in the elimination of mitochondria, ribosomes and other organelles during erythroid terminal differentiation. Here, the modulators of autophagy that regulate erythroid differentiation were summarized, including autophagy-related (Atg) genes, the B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) family member Bcl-2/adenovirus E1B 19 kDa interacting protein 3-like (Nix/Binp3L), transcription factors globin transcription factor 1 (GATA1) and forkhead box O3 (FoxO3), intermediary factor KRAB-associated protein1 (KAP1), and other modulators, such as focal adhesion kinase family-interacting protein of 200-kDa (FIP200), Ca2+ and 15-lipoxygenase. Understanding the modulators of autophagy in erythropoiesis will benefit the autophagy research field and facilitate the prevention and treatment of autophagy-related red blood cell disorders.

The Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer belonging to the Araliaceae has long been used as an herbal medicine. Although public databases are presently available for this family, no methyl jasmonate (MeJA) elicited transcriptomic information was previously reported on this species, with the exception of a few expressed sequence tags (ESTs) using the traditional Sanger method. Here, approximately 53 million clean reads of adventitious root transcriptome were separately filtered via Illumina HiSeq™2000 from two samples treated with MeJA (Pg-MeJA) and equal volumes of solvent, ethanol (Pg-Con). Jointly, a total of 71,095 all-unigenes from both samples were assembled and annotated, and based on sequence similarity search with known proteins, a total of 56,668 unigenes was obtained. Out of these annotated unigenes, 54,920 were assigned to the NCBI non-redundant protein (Nr) database, 35,448 to the Swiss-prot database, 43,051 to gene ontology (GO), and 19,986 to clusters of orthologous groups (COG). Searching in the Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway database indicated that 32,200 unigenes were mapped to 128 KEGG pathways. Moreover, we obtained several genes showing a wide range of expression levels. We also identified a total of 749 ginsenoside biosynthetic enzyme genes and 12 promising pleiotropic drug resistance (PDR) genes related to ginsenoside transport.