Identification of Mustard Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH) Gene Family and Expression Analysis Under Salt and Drought Stress.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Abiotic stresses severely constrain the yield of and aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs) play a pivotal role in plant stress resistance. This study aims to systematically identify the gene family members in and elucidate their expression patterns under salt and drought stress.

METHODS

Using the Arabidopsis thaliana AtALDH proteins as seed sequences, BLASTp alignment was performed against the whole-protein sequence database, combined with the conserved domain PF00171 of the ALDH proteins. A total of 39 gene family members were identified, and their physicochemical properties, structures, phylogenetic relationships, interspecies collinearity, and intraspecies collinearity were analyzed. The qRT-PCR method was employed to quantify the relative expression levels of the genes potentially associated with stress resistance under various treatments, and their effects on drought and salt stress tolerance were evaluated.

RESULTS

The results demonstrated that were universally significantly upregulated under salt stress, while exhibiting predominantly upregulated trends under drought stress. These findings suggest that may enhance plant resistance to both salt and drought stress by modulating the aldehyde metabolic pathways.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides a theoretical basis for elucidating the functional roles and molecular genetic mechanisms of the gene family in under salt and drought stress.