ABSTRACT
Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is an important pulse crop grown mainly in the arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Due to its taxonomic proximity with the model legume Medicago truncatula and its ability to grow in arid soil, chickpea has its unique advantage to understand how plant responds to drought stress. In this study, an oligonucleotide microarray was used for analyzing the transcriptomic profiles of unigenes in leaf and root of chickpea seedling under drought stress, respectively. Microarray data showed that 4,815 differentially expressed unigenes were either ≥ 2-fold up- or ≤ 0.5-fold down-regulated in at least one of the five time points during drought stress. 2,623 and 3,969 unigenes were time-dependent differentially expressed in root and leaf, respectively. 110 pathways in two tissues were found to respond to drought stress. Compared to control, 88 and 52 unigenes were expressed only in drought-stressed root and leaf, respectively, while nine unigenes were expressed in both the tissues. 1,922 function-unknown unigenes were found to be remarkably regulated by drought stress. The expression profiles of these time-dependent differentially expressed unigenes were useful in furthering our knowledge of molecular mechanism of plant in response to drought stress.
Subject(s)
Cicer/genetics , Droughts , Plant Leaves/genetics , Plant Roots/genetics , Seedlings/genetics , Stress, Physiological/genetics , Cicer/growth & development , Cluster Analysis , Computational Biology , Expressed Sequence Tags , Gene Expression Profiling , Gene Expression Regulation, Plant , Plant Leaves/growth & development , Plant Roots/growth & development , Seedlings/growth & development , Signal TransductionABSTRACT
Late-embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins have been reported to be closely correlated with the acquisition of desiccation tolerance during seed development and response of plant to drought, salinity, and freezing, etc. In this study, a LEA gene, CarLEA4 (GenBank accession no. GU247511), was isolated from chickpea based on a cDNA library constructed with chickpea seedling leaves treated by polyethylene glycol (PEG). CarLEA4 contained two exons and one intron within genomic DNA sequence and encoded a putative polypeptide of 152 amino acids. CarLEA4 had a conserved pfam domain, and showed high similarity to the group 4 LEA proteins in secondary structure. It was localized in the nucleus. The transcripts of CarLEA4 were detected in many chickpea organs including seedling leaves, stems, roots, flowers, young pods, and young seeds. CarLEA4 was inhibited by leaf age and showed expression changes in expression during seed development, pod development and germination. Furthermore, the expression of CarLEA4 was strongly induced by drought, salt, heat, cold, ABA, IAA, GA(3) and MeJA. Our results suggest that CarLEA4 encodes a protein of LEA group 4 and may be involved in various plant developmental processes and abiotic stress responses.
Subject(s)
Cicer/genetics , Genes, Plant/genetics , Multigene Family/genetics , Plant Proteins/genetics , Amino Acid Sequence , Cell Nucleus/metabolism , Gene Expression Profiling , Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental , Gene Expression Regulation, Plant , Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism , Molecular Sequence Data , Organ Specificity/genetics , Plant Growth Regulators/pharmacology , Plant Proteins/chemistry , Plant Proteins/metabolism , Protein Structure, Tertiary , Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction , Sequence Alignment , Stress, Physiological/drug effects , Stress, Physiological/geneticsABSTRACT
F-box protein family has been found to play important roles in plant development and abiotic stress responses via the ubiquitin pathway. In this study, an F-box gene CarF-box1 (for Cicer arietinum F-box gene 1, Genbank accession no. GU247510) was isolated based on a cDNA library constructed with chickpea seedling leaves treated by polyethylene glycol. CarF-box1 encoded a putative protein with 345 amino acids and contained no intron within genomic DNA sequence. CarF-box1 is a KFB-type F-box protein, having a conserved F-box domain in the N-terminus and a Kelch repeat domain in the C-terminus. CarF-box1 was localized in the nucleus. CarF-box1 exhibited organ-specific expression and showed different expression patterns during seed development and germination processes, especially strongly expressed in the blooming flowers. In the leaves, CarF-box1 could be significantly induced by drought stress and slightly induced by IAA treatment, while in the roots, CarF-box1 could be strongly induced by drought, salinity and methyl jasmonate stresses. Our results suggest that CarF-box1 encodes an F-box protein and may be involved in various plant developmental processes and abiotic stress responses.
