Genome-Wide Identification of WRKY Family Genes and Analysis of Their Expression in Response to Abiotic Stress in Ginkgo biloba L.

Abstract

Ginkgo biloba is widely planted, and the extracts of leaves contain flavonoids, terpene esters and other medicinal active ingredients. WRKY proteins are a large transcription factor family in plants, which play an important role in the regulation of plant secondary metabolism and development, as well as the response to biotic and abiotic stress. In our study, we identified 40 genes with conserved WRKY motifs in the G. biloba genome and classified into groups I (groups I-N and -C), II (groups IIa, b, c, d, and e), and III, which include 12, 26, and 2 GbWRKY genes, respectively. Meanwhile, the expression patterns of 10 GbWRKY (GbWRKY2, GbWRKY3, GbWRKY5, GbWRKY7, GbWRKY11, GbWRKY15, GbWRKY23, GbWRKY29, GbWRKY31, GbWRKY32) under different tissue and abiotic stress conditions were analyzed. Under stress treatment, the expression patterns of 10 WRKY genes were changed. 10 ginkgo WRKY transcription factors were induced by ETH and SA, but there are two different induced response modes. The expression of 10 WRKY genes was inhibited under low temperature, high temperature and MeJA hormone induction. Most WRKY genes were up-regulated under the induction of high salt and ABA. GbWRKYs were differentially expressed in various tissues after abiotic stress and plant hormone treatments, thereby indicating their possible roles in biological processes and abiotic stress tolerance and adaptation. Our results provided insight into the genome-wide identification of GbWRKYs, as well as their differential responses to stresses and hormones. These data can also be utilized to identify potential molecular targets to confer tolerance to various stresses in G. biloba.
 
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 In press - Online First. Article has been peer reviewed, accepted for publication and published online without pagination. It will receive pagination when the issue will be ready for publishing as a complete number (Volume 47, Issue 4, 2019). The article is searchable and citable by Digital Object Identifier (DOI). DOI link will become active after the article will be included in the complete issue.
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Treatment of Ginkgo biloba with Exogenous Sodium Selenite Affects Its Physiological Growth, Changes Its Phytohormones, and Synthesizes Its Terpene Lactones

“…Interestingly, the expression of the ginkgo leaves’ WRKYs is regulated by many phytohormones, such as ABA, SA, MeJA, GA, and ETH. These hormones regulate ginkgo terpene lactone synthesis by affecting WRKYs [ 37 , 42 ]. A KEGG database comparison revealed that differentially expressed genes of different Se treatments were mainly concentrated in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, phytohormone signal transduction, terpene synthesis and other related pathways ( Figure 4 ).…”

Genome-wide identification of the WRKY gene family in Camellia oleifera and expression analysis under phosphorus deficiency

“…In this study, a total of 89 CoWRKY genes were identified in diploid and wild progenitor of C. oleifera , greater than in some woody species such as C. sinensis (56) ( Wang et al., 2019 ), Pinus massoniana (31) ( Yao et al., 2020 ), Cunninghamia lanceolate (44)( Zeng et al., 2019 ), and Ginkgo biloba (40)( Cheng et al., 2019 ), but fewer than in Arachis hypogaea (158, allo-tetraploid) ( Zhao et al., 2020 ), strawberry (222, allo-octoploid) ( Zhou et al., 2022 ), and soybean(174, paleopolyploidy) ( Yang et al., 2017 ). By inference, cultivars of C. oleifera , as a hexaploid, were predicted to harbor much larger numbers of WRKY proteins in the genome.…”

Genome-wide identification and bioinformatics analysis of the WRKY transcription factors and screening of candidate genes for anthocyanin biosynthesis in azalea (Rhododendron simsii)

“…The WRKY proteins of following species were retrieved from prior studies: Arabidopsis thaliana ( Eulgem et al, 2000 ), Brassica napus ( He et al, 2016 ), Malus domestica ( Qin et al, 2022 ), Camellia sinensis ( Wang et al, 2019 ), Cucumis sativus ( Chen et al, 2020b ), Physcomitrella patens ( Rensing et al, 2008 ), Theobroma cacao ( Silva Monteiro de Almeida et al, 2017 ), Medicago truncatula ( Kumar et al, 2016 ), Cyanidioschyzon merolae ( Dou et al, 2014 ), rice ( Oryza sativa ) ( Ramamoorthy et al, 2008 ), Ginkgo biloba ( Cheng et al, 2019 ), Chlamydomonas reinhardtii ( Rinerson et al, 2015 ), Vitis vinifera ( Guo et al, 2014 ), Solanum melongena ( Yang Y. et al, 2020 ), Azolla filiculoides ( Zhao et al, 2021 ), Salvinia cucullate ( Zhao et al, 2021 ), Selaginella moellendorffii ( Rinerson et al, 2015 ), Moringa oleifera ( Zhang et al, 2019 ), Solanum lycopersicum ( Huang et al, 2012 ), Sorghum bicolor ( Baillo et al, 2020 ) and Populus trichocarpa ( Jiang et al, 2014 ). The evolutionary relationships of these species were determined according to the PGDD database ( Lee et al, 2013 ) and previous study ( Liu et al, 2021 ).…”