Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic and Developmental Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
College of Life Science, Ningxia University, Yinchuan, Ningxia 750021, China.
Genes (Basel). 2020 May 14;11(5):553. doi: 10.3390/genes11050553.
The GRAS (named after first three identified proteins within this family, GAI, RGA, and SCR) family contains plant-specific genes encoding transcriptional regulators that play a key role in gibberellin (GA) signaling, which regulates plant growth and development. Even though genes have been characterized in some plant species, little research is known about the genes in barley ( L.). In this study, we observed 62 GRAS members from barley genome, which were grouped into 12 subgroups by using phylogenomic analysis together with the GRAS genes from Arabidopsis (), maize (), and rice (. Chromosome localization and gene structure analysis suggested that duplication events and abundant presence of intronless genes might account for the massive expansion of gene family in barley. The analysis of RNA-seq data indicates the expression pattern of genes in various tissues at different stages in barley. Noteworthy, our qRT-PCR analysis showed the expression of 18 candidate genes abundantly in the developing inflorescence, indicating their potential roles in the barley inflorescence development and reproduction. Collectively, our evolutionary and expression analysis of GRAS family are useful for future functional characterization of GA signaling in barley and agricultural improvement.
GRAS（以该家族中最初鉴定的三种蛋白质命名，即 GAI、RGA 和 SCR）家族包含植物特异性基因，这些基因编码转录调节剂，在赤霉素（GA）信号转导中发挥关键作用，赤霉素信号转导调节植物的生长和发育。尽管在一些植物物种中已经鉴定出了基因，但对大麦（ L.）中的基因知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们观察到来自大麦基因组的 62 个 GRAS 成员，通过使用系统基因组分析以及拟南芥（）、玉米（）和水稻（）中的 GRAS 基因，将它们分为 12 个亚组。染色体定位和基因结构分析表明，复制事件和大量无内含子基因的存在可能导致大麦中基因家族的大规模扩张。对 RNA-seq 数据的分析表明，基因在大麦不同组织和不同发育阶段的表达模式。值得注意的是，我们的 qRT-PCR 分析显示，18 个候选基因在发育中的花序中大量表达，表明它们在大麦花序发育和繁殖中的潜在作用。总之，我们对 GRAS 家族的进化和表达分析有助于未来对大麦中 GA 信号转导的功能表征和农业改良。
