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The sucrose synthase gene family in Populus: structure, expression, and evolution

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Abstract

Sucrose synthase is a key enzyme in sucrose metabolism in plant cells, and it is involved in the synthesis of cell wall cellulose. Although the sucrose synthase gene (SUS) family in the model plants Arabidopsis thaliana has been characterized, little is known about this gene family in trees. This study reports the identification of two novel SUS genes in the economically important poplar tree. These genes were expressed predominantly in mature xylem. Using molecular cloning and bioinformatics analysis of the Populus genome, we demonstrated that SUS is a multigene family with seven members that each exhibit distinct but partially overlapping expression patterns. Of particular interest, three SUS genes were preferentially expressed in the stem xylem, suggesting that poplar SUSs are involved in the formation of the secondary cell wall. Gene structural and phylogenetic analyses revealed that the Populus SUS family is composed of four main subgroups that arose before the separation of monocots and dicots. Phylogenetic analyses associated with the tissue- and organ-specific expression patterns. The high intraspecific nucleotide diversity of two SUS genes was detected in the natural population, and the π nonsyn/π syn ratio was significantly less than 1; therefore, SUS genes appear to be evolving in Populus, primarily under purifying selection. This is the first comprehensive study of the SUS gene family in woody plants; the analysis includes genome organization, gene structure, and phylogeny across land plant lineages, as well as expression profiling in Populus.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. BLJC200906), the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30600479, 30872042), Major Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 307006), Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of PR China (No. 200770), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (No. NCET-07-0084), and Introduction of Foreign Advanced Agricultural Science and Technology into China (No. 2009-4-22).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Deqiang Zhang, Baohua Xu, Xiaohui Yang, Zhiyi Zhang & Bailian Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Genetics and Breeding in Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants, Beijing Forestry University, Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Deqiang Zhang, Baohua Xu, Xiaohui Yang, Zhiyi Zhang & Bailian Li

Authors
  1. Deqiang Zhang
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  2. Baohua Xu
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  3. Xiaohui Yang
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  4. Zhiyi Zhang
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  5. Bailian Li
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Deqiang Zhang or Bailian Li.

Additional information

Communicated by W. Boerjan

Sequence data from this article have been deposited with the GenBank Data Library under accession numbers GU559727–GU559735 (PtSUS1, PtSUS2, PtrSUS1 to PtrSUS7 cDNA) and HM026865–HM026944 for the population sequences of PtSUS1 and PtSUS2 genes.

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Fig. S1

Geographic location of each individual P. tomentosa tree used for nucleotide diversity analysis. The relevant Chinese provinces are shown. Each tree is indicated by a red dot (DOC 1411 kb)

Fig. S2

Nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequences of PtSUS1 (a) and PtSUS2 (b). Numbers on the left refer to the positions of nucleotides or amino acid residues (DOC 52 kb)

Fig. S3

Spatiotemporal expression patterns of PtSUS1 and PtSUS2 in poplar. a Relative transcript levels of PtSUS1 and PtSUS2 in various poplar tissues. b The spatial expression of PtSUS1 and PtSUS2 in the mature xylem of poplar (DOC 29 kb)

Fig. S4

Protein sequence alignment of PtrSUS family members. The numbers on the left are the positions of the amino acids in each protein, with gaps (dashes) included to maximize alignments. Identical and similar amino acids are shaded in pink and blue, respectively (DOC 189 kb)

Table S1

Primers used for sucrose synthase cDNA amplification (DOC 30 kb)

Table S2

Primers used for sucrose synthase gene amplification (DOC 42 kb)

Table S3

List of sucrose synthase gene sequences used in this study (DOC 59 kb)

Table S4

Lengths of gene regions analyzed in this study (DOC 36 kb)

Table S5

The frequencies of nucleotide substitution types in PtSUS1 and PtSUS2 (DOC 35 kb)

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Zhang, D., Xu, B., Yang, X. et al. The sucrose synthase gene family in Populus: structure, expression, and evolution. Tree Genetics & Genomes 7, 443–456 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-010-0346-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-010-0346-2

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