R&D CENTER

Genome-wide identification and analysis of GATA transcription factors from Three Conifer Genomes, Pinus taeda, Pseudotsuga menziesii, and Picea abies

Jongsun Park*, Mangi Kim, Yongsung Kim
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GATA transcription factors (TFs) are widespread eukaryotic regulators whose DNAbinding domain is a class IV zinc finger motif in the form CX2CX17–20CX2C followed by a basic region. In plant, GATA TFs play important roles in light-dependent and nitrate-dependent control of transcriptions. Due to rapid development of biotechnologies, now more than 1,300 plant genomes are available (Plant Genome Database; http://www.plantgenome.info/). Conifer (Pinophyta) covering 550 to 650 species consists of only one class, Pinopsida. Based on status of Confier genome projects, six genomes originated from five species are available. Among them, three genomes, Pinus taeda, Pseudotsuga menziesii, and Picea abies, have gene model, which is required for identifying GATA transcription factors systematically. Using the in-house GATA TF pipeline, we got 14, 10, and 11 GATA TF from three species, respectively, which are small number of those of Angiosperm plants, such as Arabidopsis (37 GATA TFs) and rice (28 GATA TFs). Phylogeneic analyses was conducted with those of Arabidopsis, rice, Pyrus x bretschneideri (Rosales) as a midpoint between monocot/dicot and basal angiosperm, and Amborella trichopoda as basal angiosperm species were conducted. It presents that nine major clades containing conifer GATA TFs were identified among which three clades are conifer-specific, and two are conifer and A. trichopoda. These results will be fundamental data for understanding GATA transcription factors in conifer genomes.