Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of Cucumber BPC Transcription Factors and Their Responses to Abiotic Stresses and Exogenous Phytohormones

Abstract

BASIC PENTACYSTEINE (BPC) is a small transcription factor family that functions in diverse growth and development processes in plants. However, the roles of BPCs in plants, especially cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.), in response to abiotic stress and exogenous phytohormones are still unclear. Here, we identified four BPC genes in the cucumber genome, and classified them into two groups according to phylogenetic analysis. We also investigated the gene structures and detected five conserved motifs in these CsBPCs. Tissue expression pattern analysis revealed that the four CsBPCs were expressed ubiquitously in both vegetative and reproductive organs. Additionally, the transcriptional levels of the four CsBPCs were induced by various abiotic stress and hormone treatments. Overexpression of CsBPC2 in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) inhibited seed germination under saline, polyethylene glycol, and abscisic acid (ABA) conditions. The results suggest that the CsBPC genes may play crucial roles in cucumber growth and development, as well as responses to abiotic stresses and plant hormones. CsBPC2 overexpression in tobacco negatively affected seed germination under hyperosmotic conditions. Additionally, CsBPC2 functioned in ABA-inhibited seed germination and hypersensitivity to ABA-mediated responses. Our results provide fundamental information for further research on the biological functions of BPCs in development and abiotic stress responses in cucumber and other plant species.

Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of Chinese Cabbage S1fa Transcription Factors and Their Roles in Response to Salt Stress

“…The difference between these groups demonstrates that these proteins underwent great genetic variation after divergence, probably due to environmental influences, and that some gene fragments might have been lost during the evolutionary process [ 26 ]. The analysis of gene structure and motif suggested that the S1fa genes shared a similar exon–intron and motif structure, indicating there is a closer evolutionary relationship among the members in the same group but a functionally diversified relationship among the other group members [ 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 ]. The structure and motif analysis of Chinese cabbage S1fa genes showed a similar structure, which has three common motifs ( Figure 4 ).…”

“…The physicochemical parameters including protein isoelectric point (pl), molecular weight (kDa) and length were calculated using the tools on the ExPASy server ( (accessed on 22 March 2022)). The chromosomal locations and strand directions were obtained from the BRAD database ( (accessed on 22 March 2022)), and the subcellular location of each protein was investigated using CELLO 2.5 ( (accessed on 22 March 2022)) [ 29 ].…”

“…The full length protein sequences from Chinese cabbage, tomato, pepper, cotton, Arabidopsis , cucumber, watermelon and rice were obtained from the genome database and aligned using MUSCLE ( (accessed on 22 March 2022)), which were used to construct the evolutionary tree using the MAGA7 software by the neighbor-joining method, and protein sequence alignment was performed as described previously [ 29 ].…”

Serial-Omics and Molecular Function Study Provide Novel Insight into Cucumber Variety Improvement

“…Several gene families related to abiotic stress resistance have been identified and investigated. These include WAX [90], YUCCA (YUC) [91], stachyose synthase (STS) [92], plant glycine-rich RNA-binding protein (GR-RBP) [93], basic pentacysteine (BPC) [94], WRKY [95], trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS) [96], tubby-like protein (TLP) [97], and zinc finger-homeodomain (ZF-HD) family genes [98]. In addition to providing a valuable basis for functional research, related studies have analyzed the different stress responses of these genes and the physiological regulatory pathways involved.…”

Chromosomal Distribution of Genes Conferring Tolerance to Abiotic Stresses Versus That of Genes Controlling Resistance to Biotic Stresses in Plants

“…Many transcription factor gene families (TFs) were studied in the majority of these 21 articles [6,8,9,11,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]23,24]. Various putative stress-related and hormone-responsive cis-acting regulatory elements were identified in the promotor of these TFs.…”