Abstract
Nitrate transporters (NRTs) are important channel proteins facilitating cross-membrane movement of small molecules like NO3− which is a critical nutrient for all life. However, the classification and evolution of nitrate transporters in the legume plants are still elusive. In this study, we surveyed the wild soybean (G. soja) genomic databases and identified 120 GsNRT1 and 5 GsNRT2 encoding genes. Phylogenetic analyses show that GsNRT1 subfamily is consisted of eight clades (NPF1 to NPF8), while GsNRT2 subfamily has only one clade. Gene chromosomal location and evolutionary historic analyses indicate that GsNRT genes are unevenly distributed on 19 out of 20 G. soja chromosomes and segmental duplications may take a major part in the expansion of GsNRT family. Investigations of gene structure and protein motif compositions suggest that GsNRT family members are highly conserved in structures of both gene and protein levels. In addition, we analyzed the spatial expression patterns of representative GsNRT genes and their responses to exogenous nitrogen and carbon supplies and different abiotic stresses. The qRT-PCR data indicated that 16 selected GsNRT genes showed various expression levels in the roots, stems, leaves, and pods of young G. soja plants, and these genes were regulated by not only nitrogen and carbohydrate nutrients but also NaCl, NaHCO3, abscisic acid (ABA), and salicylic acid (SA). These results suggest that GsNRT genes may be involved in the regulation of plant growth, development, and adaptation to environmental stresses, and the study will shed light on functional dissection of plant nitrate transporter proteins in the future.
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Abbreviations
- CDS:
-
Coding sequence
- CHL1:
-
Chlorate resistant mutant 1
- NRT:
-
Nitrate transporter
- MFS:
-
Major facilitator superfamily
- HMM:
-
Hidden Markov model
- TD:
-
Tandem duplicated
- SD:
-
Segmental duplicated
- Chr:
-
Chromosome
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Victor Manon for critical reading of this manuscript.
Funding
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31670272 to X.D.), Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (C2017014 to X.D.), Study Abroad for Young Scholar Program of China Scholarship Council (to Q.L.), and the Starting Fund of Northeast Agricultural University (to X.D.).
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Experiment design: Q.L., X.D., Y.L. Experiment performance and data analyses: Y.L., H.Y., H.L., P.Z., T.N.M., Q.L. Data interpretation: X.D., W.L., J.X. Manuscript drafting: Q.L., X.D., Y.L.
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Communicated by: Izabela Pawłowicz
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Fig. S1
The Python scripts for peptide length, molecular weight_and pI calculation (PDF 18052 kb)
Fig. S2
Distribution of intron numbers in different GsNRT genes. (PDF 3178 kb)
Fig. S3
The details of conserved motifs for the GsNRT family. (PDF 3275 kb)
Fig. S4
Transcriptomic analyses of GsNRT genes in different G. soja tissues. (PDF 19933 kb)
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You, H., Liu, Y., Minh, T.N. et al. Genome-wide identification and expression analyses of nitrate transporter family genes in wild soybean (Glycine soja). J Appl Genetics 61, 489–501 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-020-00571-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13353-020-00571-7