School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW 2006, Australia.
Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney, Cobbitty, NSW 2570, Australia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jan 31;24(3):2707. doi: 10.3390/ijms24032707.
Serpins constitute a family of proteins with a very wide distribution in nature. Serpins have a well-conserved tertiary structure enabling irreversible protease inhibition or other specific biochemical functions. We examined the 189 putative wheat serpin genes previously identified by Benbow et al. (2019) via analysis of gene annotations (RefSeq v1.0) and combined our previous examinations of wheat ESTs and the 454 genome assembly. We found that 81 of the 189 putative serpin genes, plus two manually annotated genes, encode full-length, structurally conserved serpins. Expression of these serpin genes during wheat development and disease/abiotic stress responses was analysed using a publicly available RNAseq database. Results showed that the wheat LR serpins, homologous to Arabidopsis AtSerpin1 and barley BSZx, are ubiquitously expressed across all tissues throughout the wheat lifecycle, whereas the expression of other wheat serpin genes is tissue-specific, including expression only in the grain, only in the root, and only in the anther and microspore. Nine serpin genes were upregulated in both biotic and abiotic responses. Two genes in particular were highly expressed during disease and abiotic challenges. Our findings provide valuable information for further functional study of the wheat serpins, which in turn may lead to their application as molecular markers in wheat breeding.
丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂（Serpins）构成了一个在自然界中广泛分布的蛋白质家族。丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂具有高度保守的三级结构，能够实现不可逆的蛋白酶抑制或其他特定的生化功能。我们通过分析基因注释（RefSeq v1.0）以及综合我们之前对小麦 EST 和 454 基因组组装的研究，对 Benbow 等人（2019 年）之前鉴定的 189 个小麦丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂基因进行了研究。结果发现，这 189 个假定丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂基因中的 81 个，加上两个手动注释的基因，编码具有完整结构的保守丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂。我们利用一个公开的 RNAseq 数据库分析了这些丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂基因在小麦发育过程以及对疾病/非生物胁迫响应中的表达情况。结果表明，与拟南芥 AtSerpin1 和大麦 BSZx 同源的小麦 LR 丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂在小麦生命周期的所有组织中均广泛表达，而其他小麦丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂基因的表达则具有组织特异性，包括仅在谷物中表达、仅在根部表达、仅在花药和花粉中表达。有 9 个丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂基因在生物和非生物胁迫响应中均上调。其中两个基因在疾病和非生物胁迫下表达水平较高。我们的研究结果为进一步研究小麦丝氨酸蛋白酶抑制剂的功能提供了有价值的信息，这反过来又可能使其成为小麦育种中的分子标记。
