Pacheco Daniel Dastan Rezabala, Santana Brenda Conceição Guimaraes, Pirovani Carlos Priminho, de Almeida Alex-Alan Furtado
Department of Biological Sciences, Santa Cruz State University, Campus Soane Nazaré, Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil.
Front Plant Sci. 2023 Feb 28;14:1098401. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1098401. eCollection 2023.
The zinc/iron-regulated transporter-like protein (ZIP) gene family first identified in plants is highly distributed in the plant kingdom. This family has previously been reported to transport several essential and non-essential cationic elements, including those toxic to many economically important crops such as cacao ( L.). In this article, we present a detailed study on physicochemical properties, evolution, duplication, gene structure, promoter region and TcZIP family three-dimensional protein structure. A total of 11 TcZIP genes have been identified to encode proteins from 309 to 435 aa, with localization in the plasma membrane and chloroplast, containing 6-9 putative domains (TM). Interspecies phylogenetic analysis subdivided the ZIP proteins into four groups. Segmental duplication events significantly contributed to the expansion of TcZIP genes. These genes underwent high pressure of purifying selection. The three-dimensional structure of the proteins showed that α helix conformations are predominant with several pocket sites, containing the metal binding site, with the residues leucine (LEU), alanine (ALA), glycine (GLY), serine (SER), lysine (LYS) and histidine (HIS) the most predicted. Regarding the analysis of the protein-protein interaction and enrichment of the gene ontology, four biological processes were assigned, the most important being the cation transport. These new discoveries expand the knowledge about the function, evolution, protein structures and interaction of ZIP family proteins in cacao and contribute to develop cacao genotypes enriched with important mineral nutrients as well as genotypes that bioaccumulate or exclude toxic metals.
锌/铁调节转运蛋白样蛋白（ZIP）基因家族最初在植物中被鉴定出来，在植物界广泛分布。此前有报道称，该家族可转运多种必需和非必需的阳离子元素，包括对许多经济作物（如可可（L.））有毒的元素。在本文中，我们对可可TcZIP家族的理化性质、进化、复制、基因结构、启动子区域和三维蛋白质结构进行了详细研究。共鉴定出11个TcZIP基因，其编码的蛋白质含有309至435个氨基酸，定位于质膜和叶绿体，包含6至9个假定结构域（TM）。种间系统发育分析将ZIP蛋白分为四组。片段重复事件对TcZIP基因的扩增有显著贡献。这些基因经历了强烈的纯化选择压力。蛋白质的三维结构表明，α螺旋构象占主导，有几个口袋位点，包含金属结合位点，预测的氨基酸残基中亮氨酸（LEU）、丙氨酸（ALA）、甘氨酸（GLY）、丝氨酸（SER）、赖氨酸（LYS）和组氨酸（HIS）最为常见。关于蛋白质-蛋白质相互作用分析和基因本体富集，确定了四个生物学过程，其中最重要的是阳离子转运。这些新发现扩展了我们对可可中ZIP家族蛋白的功能、进化、蛋白质结构和相互作用的认识，并有助于培育富含重要矿质营养的可可基因型，以及生物积累或排除有毒金属的基因型。
