Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of the Gene Family and Their Expression Patterns in Response to MeJA and Aluminum Stress in Centipedegrass ().

The TIFY family is a group of novel plant-specific transcription factors involved in plant development, signal transduction, and responses to stress and hormones. genes have been found and functionally characterized in a number of plant species. However, there is no information about this family in warm-season grass plants. The current study identified 24 genes in , a well-known perennial warm-season grass species with a high tolerance to aluminum toxicity and good adaptability to the barren acidic soils. All of the 24 were unevenly located on six out of nine chromosomes and could be classified into two subfamilies (ZIM/ZML and JAZ), consisting of 3 and 21 genes, respectively, with the JAZ subfamily being further divided into five subgroups (JAZ I to JAZ V). The amino acids of 24 EoTIFYs showed apparent differences between the two subfamilies based on the analysis of gene structures and conserved motifs. MCScanX analysis revealed the tandem duplication and segmental duplication of several genes occurred during genome evolution. Syntenic analyses of genes between and other five plant species (including , , , , and ) provided valuable clues for understanding the potential evolution of the EoTIFY family. qRT-PCR analysis revealed that genes exhibited different spatial expression patterns in different tissues. In addition, the expressions of genes were highly induced by MeJA and all of the EoTIFY family members except for displayed upregulated expression by MeJA. Ten genes (, , , , , , , , , and ) were observed to be highly expressed under both exogenous MeJA treatment and aluminum stress, respectively. These results suggest that genes play a role in the JA-regulated pathway of plant growth and aluminum resistance as well. The results of this study laid a foundation for further understanding the function of genes in , and provided useful information for future aluminum tolerance related breeding and gene function research in warm-season grass plants.