Abstract
Dehydrins, an important group of late embryogenesis abundant proteins, accumulate in response to dehydration stresses and play protective roles under stress conditions. Herein, phylogenetic analysis of the dehydrin family was performed using the protein sequences of 108 dehydrins obtained from 14 plant species based on plant taxonomy and protein subclasses. Sub-cellular localization and phosphorylation sites of these proteins were also predicted. The protein features distinguishing these dehydrins categories were identified using various attribute weighting and decision tree analyses. The results revealed that the presence of the S motif preceding the K motif (YnSKn, SKn, and SnKS) was more evident and the YnSKn subclass was more frequent in monocots. In barley, as one of the most drought-tolerant crops, there are ten members of YnSKn out of 13 HvDhns. In promoter regions, six types of abiotic stress-responsive elements were identified. Regulatory elements in UTR sequences of HvDhns were infrequent while only four miRNA targets were found. Furthermore, physiological parameters and gene expression levels of HvDhns were studied in tolerant (HV1) and susceptible (HV2) cultivars, and in an Iranian tolerant wild barley genotype (Spontaneum; HS) subjected to gradual water stress and after recovery duration at the vegetative stage. The results showed the significant impact of dehydration on dry matter, relative leaf water, chlorophyll contents, and oxidative damages in HV2 compared with the other studied genotypes, suggesting a poor dehydration tolerance, and incapability of recovering after re-watering in HV2. Under severe drought stress, among the 13 HvDhns genes, 5 and 10 were exclusively induced in HV1 and HS, respectively. The gene and protein structures and the expression patterns of HvDhns as well as the physiological data consistently support the role of dehydrins in survival and recovery of barley plants from drought particularly in HS. Overall, this information would be helpful for functional characterization of the Dhn family in plants.
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Abbreviations
- CDS:
-
Coding sequence
- Dhn:
-
Dehydrin
- DW:
-
Dry weight
- FW:
-
Fresh weight
- HV1:
-
Hordeum vulgare L. cv Yousef
- HV2:
-
Hordeum vulgare L. cv Morocco 9–75
- HS:
-
Hordeum vulgare L. ssp. Spontaneum
- IRES:
-
Internal ribosome entry site
- LEA:
-
Late embryogenesis abundant
- LT:
-
Leaf temperature
- MDA:
-
Malondialdehyde
- NLS:
-
Nuclear localization signals
- RWC:
-
Relative water content
- SPAD:
-
Special products analysis division
- TFBS:
-
Transcription factor binding sites
- TSS:
-
Transcription start site
- TW:
-
Turgid weights
- UTR:
-
Untranslated region
- WHC:
-
Water holding capacity
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a grant awarded by the Agriculture Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran, (ABRII). We would like to appreciate Dr. Stefania Grando, (ICARDA) who kindly provided the Morocco 9–75 seeds. Moreover, the authors are grateful to Dr. HamidReza Nikkhah (SPII) and Dr. Mehdi Zahravi (SPII) for providing the spring barley cv Yousef and Spantaneum seeds, respectively.
Author contributions
Most experiments and data analyses were performed by R. Abedini and F. GhaneGolmohammadi. Phylogentic analysis and protein feature analysis were assisted by E. Pourabed and A. Jafarneghad, respectively. R. PishkamRad contributed to biochemical analysis. M. Shahbazi and Z.S. Shaobbar were responsible for overall conceptualization and supervision of the experiments and worked on data processing and manuscript preparation.
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Raha Abedini and Farzan GhaneGolmohammadi contributed equally.
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Abedini, R., GhaneGolmohammadi, F., PishkamRad, R. et al. Plant dehydrins: shedding light on structure and expression patterns of dehydrin gene family in barley. J Plant Res 130, 747–763 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-017-0941-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-017-0941-5