Genome-Wide Identification of the Dehydrin Genes in the Cucurbitaceae Species

Abstract

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT Dehydrins (DHNs) are hydrophilic proteins with conserved lysine-rich K-segment, which belong to Group II of the late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) protein family. DHNs are considered as molecular chaperons playing important roles in abiotic stress tolerance. In this study, DHN genes were identified through genome-wide searches in five Cucurbitaceae species, including cucumber, wild cucumber, melon, watermelon, and bitter gourd. Three to five DHN genes were found in each of the five species, which were further divided into several protein architecture types based on the presence and order of the major conserved motifs such as K-, Y-, and S-segments. In silico expression profiling using RNA-Seq data revealed high expression of SK3-type DHN gene and low expression of other type DHN genes in cucumber and melon. In silico promoter analysis identified a number of cis-acting element-like sequences related to abiotic stress-response such as DRE and ABRE in 2-kb putative promoter sequences. DHN genes identified in this study will be valuable for understanding the stress response mechanism as well as assisting molecular breeding in Cucurbitaceae crops.

Diverse responsiveness of dehydrin genes to abscisic acid and water stress treatments in cucumber F1 cultivar hybrids

“…Putative DHN coding genes containing the characteristic 'K' peptide motif of dehydrins (Close, 1996) were selected in silico from the cucumber genome. These corresponded to cucumber dehydrins reported earlier by Lee et al (2017) and Zhou et al (2018) (Table 3). Some experimental data already supported a predicted role of this gene family in stress responses of cucumber.…”

“…We do not believe that basal expression could be triggered by occasional cold exposure, as we grew the plants at a constant high temperature (26°C) specifically for this reason. Earlier observations already suggested SKn and YnSKn type dehydrins exhibiting higher, and lower level of expression, respectively, in the absence of stress (Lee et al, 2017). Stress independent expression of DHNs was also shown in other plant species in several previous studies (Deák et al, 2017;Natali et al, 2007).…”

“…Furthermore, the overexpression of some DHN transgenes enhanced stress tolerance in diverse plant species (Chiappetta et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2015;Muñoz-Mayor et al, 2012;Yin, Rorat, Szabala, Ziołkowska, & Malepszy, 2006). In case of cucumber, experimental data have already highlighted a potential role of dehydrin genes in water stress tolerance (Altunoglu, Baloglu, Yer, Pekol, & Baloglu, 2016;Lee et al, 2017;Zhou, Hu, Xu, Jiang, & Liu, 2018). Dehydrin genes were frequently found upregulated by the hormone abscisic acid (ABA), representing a possible induction mechanism for this group of genes under environmental stresses (Battaglia, Olvera-Carrillo, Garciarrubio, Campos, & Covarrubias, 2008;Borovskii, Stupnikova, Antipina, Vladimirova, & Voinikov, 2002).…”

Comprehensive Transcriptome Profiling and Identification of Potential Genes Responsible for Salt Tolerance in Tall Fescue Leaves under Salinity Stress

“…The transcriptome data has also enabled genome-wide studies of individual salt responsive genes as well as their functions. For example, Kumar et al [ 21 ] reported that the ectopic expression of OsSta2 gene in rice enhanced salt tolerance, while AP2/EREBP and dehydrin genes have been characterized in Cucurbitaceae species [ 22 , 23 ]. Also, the transcriptome of plants growing under other abiotic stresses such as cold [ 24 , 25 ], drought [ 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ], and heat [ 30 ] have been reported.…”

Crosstalk between Brassinosteroids and Ethylene during Plant Growth and under Abiotic Stress Conditions

“…These genes play important roles in dealing with various environmental stresses. Further genome-wide identification provided in the Cucurbitaceae species was focused on the dehydrin genes encoding dehydrines—hydrophilic proteins act like molecular chaperons playing crucial role in the process of abiotic stress tolerance [ 45 ]. Both of these studies could be essential for future breeding of new Cucurbitaceae cultivars with stress tolerance.…”