Genome wide analysis of heat shock transcription factor (HSF) family in chickpea and its comparison with Arabidopsis

Abstract

Plants cope with thermo-stress by increased expression of heat shock genes. These genes encode various heat shock proteins (HSPs) which rapidly accumulate and protect plants following hasty heat stress. Heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) primarily regulate expression of HSP genes by deciphering conserved binding motifs in promoter region. We retrieved HSF genes of Arabidopsis and chickpea from the online data bases and analyzed their structure and properties using bioinformatics tools. Here, we reported 20 nonredundant genes encoding HSF domain containing proteins in chickpea. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of HSF genes with Arabidopsis revealed four major groups with several paralogous and orthologous genes. Gene localization studies showed that HSF genes are unevenly distributed across all of the eight chromosomes. Segmental duplications were principally involved in HSF gene family expansion during evolution. HSF genes predominantly contain a single intron. However, quite a few genes also retain two introns, which suggest gain of intron during the evolutionary process. Combined conserved-domain analysis of Arabidopsis and chickpea HSF proteins revealed presence of 19 most common domains. Comparison of conserved domains with phylogenetic tree has shown that some domains were present in a clade-specific manner. The presence of multiple conserved domains in HSF proteins suggested that the respective genes originate from duplication events. Our in-silico work may prove helpful in understanding the evolutionary pathways of HSFs in chickpea.

Interactive effects of drought and heat stresses on morpho-physiological attributes, yield, nutrient uptake and oxidative status in maize hybrids

“…In this study, response of heat shock protein to heat stress was greater than that to drought stress, and the greater heat shock protein was observed with exposure to the drought + heat stress. Heat shock proteins play vital role in abiotic stresses particularly under temperature stress 66 . Several studies regarding the effects of a combination of drought and heat stress on the heat shock protein of tobacco 11 , wheat 67 and Arabidopsis 53 have suggested that the effect of combined stresses on plants was different from that of heat or drought stress applied individually.…”

Rice OsHSFA3 Gene Improves Drought Tolerance by Modulating Polyamine Biosynthesis Depending on Abscisic Acid and ROS Levels

“…Heat shock transcription factors (HSFs) constitute a large TF family with evident roles in growth, development and reproduction [36,42]. In addition, their important role in abiotic stress tolerance has emerged recently in several crop species [23,24,34,43]. HSFs are comprised of 25 members in rice and 22 members in Arabidopsis [28].…”

“…HSF transcription factors normally regulate the expression of various stress-responsive genes via binding to heat shock elements (HSEs) [23]. In silico cis-element analysis of the promoter of OsADC1 and AtADC1 showed that they contain HSE elements, so can be effectively bound by HSFs.…”

“…Gene structure, including introns and exons of the OsHSFA3 gene, was investigated by using the online Gene Structure Display Server (http://gsds.cbi.pku.edu.cn/) as described earlier [23]. The genomic and coding sequences were retrieved from rice genome annotation project (http://rice.plantbiology.…”

“…In rice, several genes regulate the biosynthesis of polyamines in a collective way and contribute to drought tolerance [21,22]. Thus, exploiting such tolerance mechanisms provide an amazing option to cope with drought stress in rice.Transcription factors (TFs) are well-known for their role in abiotic stress tolerance in plants [8,23]. Among the different TF families, heat shock factors (HSFs), WRKY-motif containing proteins (WRKY), myeloblastosis (MYB) and APETALA2/ethylene response factor (AP2/ERF) families are the most promising for their role in drought and other abiotic stress tolerance [18,[24][25][26][27].…”