Abstract
Auxin response factor (ARF) acts as a vital component of auxin signaling and participates in growth, development, and stress responses in plants. In the present study, we comprehensively analyzed kiwifruit’s (Actinidia chinensis) ARF genes (AcARFs) and their involvement in abiotic stress response. We identified a total of 41 AcARFs encoding ARFs in the A. chinensis genome. AcARF genes were characterized by the classic ARF_resp and a B3 domain and primarily localized on the cytoplasm and nucleus. AcARFs were categorized into eight subgroups as per the phylogenetic analysis. Synteny analysis showed that 35 gene pairs in AcARF family underwent segmental and whole genome duplication events. Promoter cis-element prediction revealed that AcARFs might be involved in abiotic factors related to stress response, which was later assessed and validated by qRT-PCR based expression analysis. Additionally, AcARFs showed tissue-specific expression. These findings extend our understanding of the functional roles of AcARFs in stress responses. Taken together, the systematic annotation of the AcARF family genes provides a platform for the functional and evolutionary study, which might help in elucidating the precise roles of the AcARFs in stress responses.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully thank for funding from Shaanxi Engineering Research Center for Kiwifruit, Shaanxi Aerospace Breeding Engineering Research Center and Key Disciplines of Botany of Xi'an City.
Funding
This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31701935), Agricultural technology R & D project of Xi’an City (20NYYF0037), Key Industry Chain Project of Shaanxi Province (2018TSCXL-NY-01–03; 2020ZDLNY03-01; S2021-YF-YBNY-0248) and Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (cstc2020jcyj-msxmX1064).
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Conceptualization, QL and LS; methodology, MX, YL, JD, YW and LS; software, LS; formal analysis, LS; resources, LS; data curation, LS. and QL; writing—original draft preparation, LS; writing—review and editing, QL; funding acquisition, LS and QL; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Su, L., Xu, M., Zhang, J. et al. Genome-wide identification of auxin response factor (ARF) family in kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis) and analysis of their inducible involvements in abiotic stresses. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 27, 1261–1276 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-01011-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12298-021-01011-4