Wang Dong, Guo Yinghui, Wu Changai, Yang Guodong, Li Yingying, Zheng Chengchao
State Key Laboratory of Crop Biology, College of Life Sciences, Shandong Agricultural University, Taian, Shandong 271018, PR China.
BMC Genomics. 2008 Jan 27;9:44. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-44.
Genes in the CCCH family encode zinc finger proteins containing the motif with three cysteines and one histidine residues. They have been known to play important roles in RNA processing as RNA-binding proteins in animals. To date, few plant CCCH proteins have been studied functionally.
In this study, a comprehensive computational analysis identified 68 and 67 CCCH family genes in Arabidopsis and rice, respectively. A complete overview of this gene family in Arabidopsis was presented, including the gene structures, phylogeny, protein motifs, and chromosome locations. In addition, a comparative analysis between these genes in Arabidopsis and rice was performed. These results revealed that the CCCH families in Arabidopsis and rice were divided into 11 and 8 subfamilies, respectively. The gene duplication contributed to the expansion of the CCCH gene family in Arabidopsis genome. Expression studies indicated that CCCH proteins exhibit a variety of expression patterns, suggesting diverse functions. Finally, evolutionary analysis showed that one subfamily is higher plant specific. The expression profile indicated that most members of this subfamily are regulated by abiotic or biotic stresses, suggesting that they could have an effective role in stress tolerance.
Our comparative genomics analysis of CCCH genes and encoded proteins in two model plant species provides the first step towards the functional dissection of this emerging family of potential RNA-binding proteins.
CCCH家族基因编码含有由三个半胱氨酸和一个组氨酸残基组成基序的锌指蛋白。已知它们作为动物中的RNA结合蛋白在RNA加工中发挥重要作用。迄今为止，很少有植物CCCH蛋白进行过功能研究。
在本研究中，全面的计算分析分别在拟南芥和水稻中鉴定出68个和67个CCCH家族基因。展示了拟南芥中该基因家族的完整概况，包括基因结构、系统发育、蛋白质基序和染色体定位。此外，对拟南芥和水稻中的这些基因进行了比较分析。这些结果表明，拟南芥和水稻中的CCCH家族分别分为11个和8个亚家族。基因复制导致了拟南芥基因组中CCCH基因家族的扩张。表达研究表明，CCCH蛋白表现出多种表达模式，暗示其功能多样。最后，进化分析表明一个亚家族是高等植物特有的。表达谱表明该亚家族的大多数成员受非生物或生物胁迫调控，表明它们可能在胁迫耐受性方面发挥有效作用。
我们对两种模式植物物种中CCCH基因和编码蛋白的比较基因组学分析为剖析这个新兴的潜在RNA结合蛋白家族的功能迈出了第一步。
