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Genomewide identification, classification and analysis of NAC type gene family in maize

Journal of Genetics volume 94, pages 377–390 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

NAC transcription factors comprise a large plant-specific gene family. Increasing evidence suggests that members of this family have diverse functions in plant growth and development. In this study, we performed a genomewide survey of NAC type genes in maize (Zea mays L.). A complete set of 148 nonredundant NAC genes (ZmNAC1–ZmNAC148) were identified in the maize genome using Blast search tools, and divided into 12 groups (a–l) based on phylogeny. Chromosomal location of these genes revealed that they are distributed unevenly across all 10 chromosomes. Segmental and tandem duplication contributed largely to the expansion of the maize NAC gene family. The K a/K s ratio suggested that the duplicated genes of maize NAC family mainly experienced purifying selection, with limited functional divergence after duplication events. Microarray analysis indicated most of the maize NAC genes were expressed across different developmental stages. Moreover, 19 maize NAC genes grouped with published stress-responsive genes from other plants were found to contain putative stress-responsive cis-elements in their promoter regions. All these stress-responsive genes belonged to the group d (stress-related). Further, these genes showed differential expression patterns over time in response to drought treatments by quantitative real-time PCR analysis. Our results reveal a comprehensive overview of the maize NAC, and form the foundation for future functional research to uncover their roles in maize growth and development.

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Acknowledgements

We thank members of the Key Laboratory of Crop Biology of Anhui province for their assistance in this study. This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (11075001, 31000871) and Scientific and Technological Research Plan of Anhui (11010301026). We extend our thanks to the reviewers for their careful reading and helpful comments on this manuscript.

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    1. Key Laboratory of Crop Biology of Anhui Province, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, People’s Republic of China

      XIAOJIAN PENG, YANG ZHAO, XIAOMING LI, MIN WU, WENBO CHAI, LEI SHENG, YU WANG, QING DONG, HAIYANG JIANG & BEIJIU CHENG

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    [Peng X., Zhao Y., Li X., Wu M., Chai W., Sheng L., Wang Y., Dong Q., Jiang H. and Cheng B. 2015 Genomewide identification, classification and analysis of NAC type gene family in maize. J. Genet. 94,xx–xx]

    Xiaojian Peng and Yang Zhao contributed equally to this work.

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    PENG, X., ZHAO, Y., LI, X. et al. Genomewide identification, classification and analysis of NAC type gene family in maize. J Genet 94, 377–390 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-015-0526-9

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12041-015-0526-9

    Keywords

    • NAC transcription factor
    • maize
    • expression
    • abiotic stress