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Evolution and expression analysis of the soybean glutamate decarboxylase gene family

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Abstract

Glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) is an enzyme that catalyses the conversion of l-glutamate into γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is a four-carbon non-protein amino acid present in all organisms. Although plant GAD plays important roles in GABA biosynthesis, our knowledge concerning GAD gene family members and their evolutionary relationship remains limited. Therefore, in this study, we have analysed the evolutionary mechanisms of soybean GAD genes and suggested that these genes expanded in the soybean genome partly due to segmental duplication events. The approximate dates of duplication events were calculated using the synonymous substitution rate, and we suggested that the segmental duplication of GAD genes in soybean originated 9.47 to 11.84 million years ago (Mya). In addition, all segmental duplication pairs (GmGAD1/3 and GmGAD2/4) are subject to purifying selection. Furthermore, GmGAD genes displayed differential expression either in their transcript abundance or in their expression patterns under abiotic stress conditions like salt, drought, and cold. The expression pattern of paralogous pairs suggested that they might have undergone neofunctionalization during the subsequent evolution process. Taken together, our results provide valuable information for the evolution of the GAD gene family and represent the basis for future research on the functional characterization of GAD genes in higher plants.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2014R1A1A2004432), Republic of Korea

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Applied Life Science, Plant Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Research Center, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 660-701, Republic of Korea

    Tae Kyung Hyun & Seung Hee Eom

  2. Biotechnology Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xiao Han

  3. Majors in Plant Resource and Environment, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, SARI, Jeju National University, Jeju, 690-756, Republic of Korea

    Ju-Sung Kim

  4. The Research Institute for Subtropical Agriculture and Biotechnology, Jeju National University, Jeju, Republic of Korea

    Ju-Sung Kim

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  1. Tae Kyung Hyun
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  2. Seung Hee Eom
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  3. Xiao Han
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  4. Ju-Sung Kim
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ju-Sung Kim.

Additional information

Corresponding editor: Rajeev Kumar Varshney

[Hyun TK, Eom SH, Han X and Kim J-S 2014 Evolution and expression analysis of the soybean glutamate decarboxylase gene family. J. Biosci. 39 1–9] DOI 10.1007/s12038-014-9484-2

Supplementary materials pertaining to this article are available on the Journal of Biosciences Website at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/dec2014/supp/Hyun.pdf

Tae Kyung Hyun and Seung Hee Eom contributed equally to this work.

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Hyun, T.K., Eom, S.H., Han, X. et al. Evolution and expression analysis of the soybean glutamate decarboxylase gene family. J Biosci 39, 899–907 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-014-9484-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-014-9484-2

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