Genome-wide and comparative phylogenetic analysis of senescence-associated NAC transcription factors in sunfower (Helianthus annuus)

BENGOA LUONI, S.; CENCI, A.; MOSCHEN, S.; NICOSIA, S.; RADONIC, L.; SABIO Y GARCIA, J.; LANGLADE, N.; VILE, D.; VAZQUEZ ROVERE, C.; FERNANDEZ , P.

BMC GENOMICS

BIOMED CENTRAL LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021

1471-2164

Background: Leaf senescence delay impacts positively in grain yield by maintaining the photosynthetic area duringthe reproductive stage and during grain flling. Therefore a comprehensive understanding of the gene families associated with leaf senescence is essential. NAC transcription factors (TF) form a large plant-specifc gene family involved inregulating development, senescence, and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. The main goal of this work was toidentify sunfower NAC TF (HaNAC) and their association with senescence, studying their orthologous to understandpossible functional relationships between genes of diferent species.Results: To clarify the orthologous relationships, we used an in-depth comparative study of four divergent taxa, indicots and monocots, with completely sequenced genomes (Arabidopsis thaliana, Vitis vinifera, Musa acuminata andOryza sativa). These orthologous groups provide a curated resource for large scale protein sequence annotation ofNAC TF. From the 151 HaNAC genes detected in the latest version of the sunfower genome, 50 genes were associated with senescence traits. These genes showed signifcant diferential expression in two contrasting lines accordingto an RNAseq assay. An assessment of overexpressing the Arabidopsis line for HaNAC001 (a gene of the same orthologous group of Arabidopsis thaliana ORE1) revealed that this line displayed a signifcantly higher number of senescentleaves and a pronounced change in development rate.Conclusions: This fnding suggests HaNAC001 as an interesting candidate to explore the molecular regulation ofsenescence in sunfower