Identification of the family of aquaporin genes and their expression in upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutumL.)

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

B Todd Campbell¹  Wonkeun Park¹  Philip J Bauer¹  Brian E Scheffler² 

[1] USDA-ARS, Coastal Plains Soil, Water and Plant Research Center, 2611 West Lucas St, 29501, Florence, SC, USA;USDA-ARS, MSA Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Unit, 141 Experiment Station Rd., 38776, Stoneville, MS, USA;

关键词: Upland Cotton;    Selectivity Filter;    Aquaporin Gene;    Plasma Membrane Intrinsic Protein;    Tonoplast Intrinsic Protein;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2229-10-142

 received in 2009-12-16, accepted in 2010-07-13,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCotton (Gossypium spp.) is produced in over 30 countries and represents the most important natural fiber in the world. One of the primary factors affecting both the quantity and quality of cotton production is water. A major facilitator of water movement through cell membranes of cotton and other plants are the aquaporin proteins. Aquaporin proteins are present as diverse forms in plants, where they function as transport systems for water and other small molecules. The plant aquaporins belong to the large major intrinsic protein (MIP) family. In higher plants, they consist of five subfamilies including plasma membrane intrinsic proteins (PIP), tonoplast intrinsic proteins (TIP), NOD26-like intrinsic proteins (NIP), small basic intrinsic proteins (SIP), and the recently discovered X intrinsic proteins (XIP). Although a great deal is known about aquaporins in plants, very little is known in cotton.ResultsFrom a molecular cloning effort, together with a bioinformatic homology search, 71 upland cotton (G. hirsutum) aquaporin genes were identified. The cotton aquaporins consist of 28 PIP and 23 TIP members with high sequence similarity. We also identified 12 NIP and 7 SIP members that showed more divergence. In addition, one XIP member was identified that formed a distinct 5th subfamily. To explore the physiological roles of these aquaporin genes in cotton, expression analyses were performed for a select set of aquaporin genes from each subfamily using semi-quantitative reverse transcription (RT)-PCR. Our results suggest that many cotton aquaporin genes have high sequence similarity and diverse roles as evidenced by analysis of sequences and their expression.ConclusionThis study presents a comprehensive identification of 71 cotton aquaporin genes. Phylogenetic analysis of amino acid sequences divided the large and highly similar multi-gene family into the known 5 aquaporin subfamilies. Together with expression and bioinformatic analyses, our results support the idea that the genes identified in this study represent an important genetic resource providing potential targets to modify the water use properties of cotton.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Park et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.