Genome-Wide Mining of CULLIN E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Genes from .

CULLIN (CUL) protein is a subtype of E3 ubiquitin ligase that is involved in a variety of biological processes and responses to stress in plants. In , the gene family has not been identified and its role in plant development, stress response and secondary metabolite synthesis has not been studied. In this study, 12 gene members all contained the typical N-terminal domain and C-terminal domain identified from the genome and were classified into four subfamilies based on the phylogenetic relationship with in . They were unevenly distributed on eight chromosomes but had a similar structural composition in the same subfamily, indicating that they were relatively conserved and potentially had similar gene functions. An interspecific and intraspecific collinearity analysis showed that fragment duplication played an important role in the evolution of the gene family. The analysis of the -acting elements suggests that the may play an important role in various biological processes, including the abscisic acid (ABA) response. To investigate this hypothesis, we treated the roots of tissue-cultured seedlings with ABA. The expression pattern analysis showed that all the genes were widely expressed in roots with various expression patterns. The co-expression association analysis of the and key enzyme genes in the terpenoid indole alkaloid (TIA) synthesis pathway revealed the complex expression patterns of 12 genes and some key TIA enzyme genes, especially , , and which might be involved in the biosynthesis of TIAs. The results showed that the were involved in the response to ABA hormones, providing important information for elucidating the function of UrCULs in . The mining of in the whole genome of provided new information for understanding the gene and its function in plant secondary metabolites, growth and development.