Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of Growth Regulatory Factor Family Genes in .

Growth Regulatory Factors (GRF) are plant-specific transcription factors that play critical roles in plant growth and development as well as plant tolerance against stress. In this study, a total of 16 genes were identified from the genomes of and . Multiple sequence alignment analysis showed that all these members contain conserved QLQ and WRC domains. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that these GRF proteins could be classified into five clusters. The genes showed similar exon-intron organizations and similar architectures in their conserved motifs. Many stress-related -acting elements were found in their promoter region, and most of them were related to drought and defense response. In addition, analyses on microarray and transcriptome data indicated that these genes exhibited distinct expression patterns in various tissues or in response to drought and salt treatments. In particular, qPCR results showed that the expression levels of gene pairs - and - were significantly increased under NaCl and mannitol treatments, indicating that they are most likely involved in salt and drought stress tolerance. Collectively, our study is valuable for further investigation on the function of genes in and for the exploration of genes in the molecular breeding of highly resistant .