Genome-Wide Analysis of NAC Transcription Factors and Characterization of the Cold Stress Response in Sweet Osmanthus

• Published in: Plant molecular biology reporter Vol. 38; no. 2; pp. 314 - 330
• Main Authors: Yue, Yuanzheng, Li, Ling, Li, Yuli, Li, Haiyan, Ding, Wenjie, Shi, Tingting, Chen, Gongwei, Yang, Xiulian, Wang, Lianggui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-06-2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Bioinformatics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Branches; Cold; Cold resistance; Cold tolerance; Cultivation; Gene expression; Genes; Genetic resources; Genomes; Introns; Landscaping; Life Sciences; Localization; Low temperature; Low temperature resistance; Metabolomics; Original Paper; Ornamental plants; Phylogeny; Plant breeding; Plant Breeding/Biotechnology; Plant Sciences; Plant species; Proteomics; Structural analysis; Transcription factors; Waterlogging; Sweet osmanthus; NAC transcription factor; Cold stress; Expression pattern; Abiotic stress
• ISSN: 0735-9640; 1572-9818
• DOI: 10.1007/s11105-020-01195-1

Sweet osmanthus (
Osmanthus fragrans
) is an evergreen aromatic woody tree widely used in landscaping. However,
O. fragrans
is very sensitive to cold stress, which seriously limits its cultivation and application in regions of low temperature. The NAC transcription factor gene family which has been characterized in many plant species could participate in multiple processes and play critical roles in plant response to external stress. However, little is known about this family in
O. fragrans
, an important woody ornamental plant. Here, the structural characteristics, chromosomal location, evolutionary relationship, cold stress expression patterns, and subcellular localization analysis of
NAC
family genes in
O. fragrans
were analyzed on a genome-wide scale. A total of 119
O. fragrans NAC
genes were identified, and gene structure analysis showed that most
OfNAC
s contained two introns, suggesting that structural diversity of the
O. fragrans NAC
family is relatively low. The phylogeny evolutionary tree showed that the NACs of
O. fragrans
were classified into 13 branches. The transcriptome data suggested that each branch members had different expression patterns in various tissues and a number of
OfNAC
s showed tissue-specific expression profiles. The quantitative real-time PCR and subcellular localization results indicated that expression patterns of most branch ‘5B’ members were significantly induced by cold stress and they were mainly located in the nucleus, especially
OfNAC49
and
59
, indicating that branch ‘5B’ members could have important roles in cold tolerance in
O. fragrans
. Remarkably, expression levels of many branch ‘5B’ genes were also significantly changed under waterlogging stress, suggesting that this branch might be widely involved in tolerance to various abiotic stresses. Our study should supply useful gene resources for the cold resistance breeding of
O. fragrans
.