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Molecular characterization and expression analysis of WRKY family genes in Dendrobium officinale

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Abstract

The WRKY family of transcription factors is one of the most important families of plant transcriptional regulators, and the members regulate multiple biological processes. However, there is limited information on WRKYs in Dendrobium officinale. In this study, 52 WRKY family genes of D. officinale were surveyed for the first time. Conserved domain, phylogenetic, exon–intron construction, and expression analyses were performed for the DoWRKY genes. Two major types of intron splicing (PR and VQR introns) were found, and the intron insertion position was observed to be relatively conserved in the conserved DoWRKY domains. The expression profiles of nine DoWRKYs were analyzed in cold- and methyl jasmonate (MeJA)-treated D. officinale seedlings; the DoWRKYs showed significant expression changes at different levels, which suggested their vital roles in stress tolerance. Moreover, the expression trends of most of the DoWRKYs after the simultaneous cold stress and MeJA treatment were the opposite of those of DoWRKYs after the individual cold stress and MeJA treatments, suggesting that the two stresses might have antagonistic effects and affect the adaptive capacity of the plants to stresses. Twelve DoWRKY genes were differentially expressed between symbiotic and asymbiotic germinated seeds; all were upregulated in the symbiotic germinated seeds except DoWRKY16. These differences in expression of DoWRKYs might be involved in promoting in vitro symbiotic germination of seeds with Tulasnella-like fungi. Our findings will be useful for further studies on the WRKY family genes in orchids.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (No. 2013AA102607).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding, Key Laboratory of Silviculture of the State Forestry Administration, Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China

    Tao Wang, Zheng Song & Lubin Li

  2. Environmental Monitoring Center of Handan, Handan, 056002, China

    Li Wei

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  1. Tao Wang
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  2. Zheng Song
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  3. Li Wei
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  4. Lubin Li
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Correspondence to Lubin Li.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Tao Wang declares that she has no conflict of interest. Zheng Song declares that he has no conflict of interest. Li Wei declares that she has no conflict of interest. Lubin Li declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Wang, T., Song, Z., Wei, L. et al. Molecular characterization and expression analysis of WRKY family genes in Dendrobium officinale . Genes Genom 40, 265–279 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13258-017-0602-z

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