Genome-wide investigation of malate dehydrogenase gene family in poplar (Populus trichocarpa) and their expression analysis under salt stress
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Agricultural Science, Bioinformatics, Genomics, Plant Science
- Keywords
- Populus trichocarpa, malate dehydrogenase, gene family, salt stress, expression
- Copyright
- © 2019 Chen et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Genome-wide investigation of malate dehydrogenase gene family in poplar (Populus trichocarpa) and their expression analysis under salt stress. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27742v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27742v1
Abstract
Malate dehydrogenase (MDH) is widely distributed in plants and animals, and plays an important role in many metabolic processes. However, there have been few studies on MDH genes in poplar. In this study, 16 MDH gene sequences were identified from the Populus trichocarpa genome and renamed according to their chromosomal locations. Based on phylogenetic analysis, the PtMDH genes were divided into five groups, and genes that grouped together all shared the same subcellular location and had similar sequence lengths, gene structures, and conserved motifs. Two pairs of tandem duplication events and three segmental duplication events involving five genes were identified from the 15 PtMDH genes located on the chromosomes. Each pair of genes had a Ka/Ks ratios <1, indicating that the MDH gene family of P. trichocarpa was purified during evolution. Based on the transcriptome data of P. trichocarpa under salt stress and qRT-PCR verification, the expression patterns of PtMDH genes under salt stress were analyzed. The results showed that most of the genes were upregulated under salt stress, indicating that they play a role in the response of poplar to salt stress. The PtmMDH1 gene can be used as an important salt-tolerant candidate gene for further investigations of molecular mechanisms. This study lays the foundation for functional analysis of MDH genes and genetic improvement in poplar.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.