DOI:10.1016/j.ygeno.2020.06.033

Gang Nie, Xinying Yang, Zhongfu Yang, Minyi Zhong, Yongqun Zhu, Jie Zhou, Charlotte Appiah, Zongchao Liao, Guangyan Feng, Xinquan Zhang.

Abstract：

NAC is one of the largest family of plant-specific transcription factors, and it plays important roles in plant development and stress responses. The study identified 72 LpNACs genes from the perennial ryegrass genome database. Gene length, MW and pI of NAC family transcription factors varied, but the gene structure and motifs were relatively conserved in bioinformatics analysis. Phylogenetic analyses of perennial ryegrass, rice and Arabidopsis were performed to study the evolutionary and functional relationships in various species. The expression of LpNAC genes that respond to various abiotic stresses including high salinity, ABA, high temperature, polyethylene glycol (PEG) and heavy metal was comprehensively analyzed. The present study provides a basic understanding of the NAC gene family in perennial ryegrass for further abiotic stress studies and improvements in breeding

Unrooted phylogenetic tree representing relationships among the NAC proteins of Lolium perenne, Arabidopsis thaliana and Oryza sativa. (a) NACs were used to construct the NJ tree with 1000 bootstrap. The tree divided the NAC proteins into 17 subgroups represented by different colored clusters within the tree. (b) Unrooted phylogenetic tree of stress-resistance NAC group (SNAC) with annotated functions. The red color represented NAC proteins inArabidopsis thaliana, blue for Oryza sativa and green forLolium perenne.