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Genome-wide identification of rice class I metallothionein gene: tissue expression patterns and induction in response to heavy metal stress

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Abstract

Metallothioneins (MTs) are members of a family of cysteine-rich low molecular weight polypeptides which play an important role in heavy metal detoxification and homeostasis of intracellular metal ions in plant. Though MT genes from some selected plants have been characterized with respect to their protein sequences, kinetic properties and tissue-specific localization, no detailed study has been carried out in rice. Here, we present genome-wide identification, structural and expression analyses of rice MT gene family. Our analysis suggests presence of 11 class I MT genes in rice genome (Release 7 of the MSU Rice Genome Annotation Project) which are differentially expressed during growth and development, in various tissues and during biotic and abiotic stresses. Our analyses suggest that class I MT proteins in rice differ in tissue localization as well as in heavy metal coordination chemistry. We also suggest that some MTs have a predominant role in detoxification of As (V) in arsenic-tolerant rice cultivars. Our analysis suggests that apart from transcriptional regulation, post-transcriptional alternative splicing in some members of this family takes place during growth and development, in various tissues and during biotic and abiotic stresses.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to Director, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow for the facilities and for the financial support from CSIR Network Project, New Delhi, India. NG acknowledges the financial support from ICMR. PKV acknowledge the financial support from CSIR. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest associated with this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow, 226 001, UP, India

    Neelam Gautam, Pankaj Kumar Verma, Shikha Verma, Rudra Deo Tripathi, Prabodh Kumar Trivedi & Debasis Chakrabarty

  2. Rice Research Station, Department of Agriculture, Chinsurah, Hooghly, Government of West Bengal, 712 102, India

    Bijan Adhikari

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  1. Neelam Gautam
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  2. Pankaj Kumar Verma
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  3. Shikha Verma
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Correspondence to Debasis Chakrabarty.

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Supplementary Fig. S1

Possibility for tandem duplication was analysed using Vista Tools for Comparative Genomics (Frazer et al. 2004). Our analysis suggests that Os12g38010 and Os12g38051 are tandem duplication in the rice genome. (PPT 126 kb)

Supplementary Table S1

OsMT class I gene family specific primers used in the present experiment for qRT-PCR designed by using Primique online software http://cgi-www.daimi.au.dk/cgi-chili/primique/front.py. (DOC 35 kb)

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Gautam, N., Verma, P.K., Verma, S. et al. Genome-wide identification of rice class I metallothionein gene: tissue expression patterns and induction in response to heavy metal stress. Funct Integr Genomics 12, 635–647 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-012-0297-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10142-012-0297-9

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