Molecular characterization and expression pattern analysis of a novel stress-responsive gene 'BeSNAC1' in Bambusa emeiensis.

NAC transcription factors (TFs) are master regulators of environmental stresses exerting a crucial role in plant growth and development. However, the studies on NAC TFs from Bambusa emeiensis are scarce. In this investigation, a novel gene from B. emeiensis encoding NAC protein was cloned and characterized. The gene was isolated based on the amino acid sequence data of stress-responsive SNAC1 of rice, named 'BeSNAC1 (accession no. MG763922)'. The full-length sequence of 1681 bp was found to contain an open-reading frame of 912 bp that encode a protein of 303 amino-acid residues. The multiple protein sequence alignments unveiled that BeSNAC1 contains a typical NAC domain. Additionally, the phylogenetic analysis showed that the corresponding protein belonged to the SNAC group, as it cladded with SNAC1, HvSNAC1, TaNAC2, SbSNAC1 and ZmSNAC1 proteins. Transactivation and subcellular localization assay disclosed that BeSNAC1 is a transcriptional activator localized in the cell nucleus.Moreover, the time-dependent expression pattern of BeSNAC1 was profiled under abscisic acid (ABA), polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG-6000), NaCl, H2O2 and Na2SO4 treatments via a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. The results revealed that the expression of BeSNAC1 was significantly upregulated in all treatments, a significant difference was observed under H2O2, NaCland ABA (P 0.001) and PEG and Na2SO4 (P < 0.01) treatments, respectively. Conclusively, our findings provide evidence that 'BeSNAC1' is a nuclear protein that might act as part of the transcription regulation complex and is involved in the ABA signalling pathway and abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms in B. emeiensis.

Transcriptome analysis and gene function annotation of Bambusa emeiensis shoots based on high-throughput sequencing technology / 生物工程学报

Bambusa emeiensis is one of the preponderant species of sympodial bamboos in Sichuan province of China, and has excellent fiber length and quality as raw materials for papermaking, textile and other industries. In this study, with the application of Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 platform, we analyzed transcriptome in B. emeiensis with different heights of 10, 50, 100 and 150 cm. A total of 69.28 M reads were obtained, and a sum up of 111 137 bands of Unigenes were acquired following de novo stitching, assembly and clustering, among which there were 63 094 bands that had been integrated in the COG, GO, KEGG, Swiss-Prot and Nr databases using annotated methods. These Unigenes not only had general functions, such as transcription and signal transduction, but were also involved in sucrose transport and metabolism, secondary metabolites and cell wall biosynthesis. There was significant difference regarding the expression of cellulose synthase gene in B. emeiensis at different heights, relevant genes were found that might be responsible for the regulation of the growth and development of B. emeiensis as well as the biosynthesis of cellulose and lignin. Our findings could provide some elementary theories for breed improvement of B. emeiensis.