Functional characterization of MIKC type MADS box transcription factors controlling flower development in Petunia Petunia hybrida

Abstract

newline newlinePetunia hybrida, with its diversity of colour and morphology is the world s most popular bedding plant belonging to the solanaceae family which includes other agronomically important species such as S. tuberosum, L. esculentum, C. annuum and N. tabacum. The MADS box family of TFs characterized by a conserved ~58 Amino acid domain, known to plays significant role during the development of floral organs in plants. In present study, we focused on molecular and functional characterization of PhFBP9, PhFBP26 and PhFBP29 MIKC type MADS box genes in P. hybrida, to enrich our knowledge about their role in regulation of flower development and reproductive transitions. For the molecular characterization, we amplifiedtheCDS (738 bp for each) region of PhFBP9, PhFBP26 and PhFBP29 genes from the cDNA of flower bud of P. hybrida, each encoding 245 Aa and revealed the association with other MIKC Type MADS Box genes in BLAST analysis. The protein multiple sequence alignment and conserved motif analysis of PhFBP9, PhFBP26 and PhFBP29 revealed the presence of highly conserved MADS-box and a K-box domain respectively. The expression pattern of PhFBP9, PhFBP26 and PhFBP29 genes from vegetative (leaf) and reproductive part of P. hybrida revealed that PhFBP9 expressed in reproductive part exclusively with quite variable transcripts range which may suggest their role during floral transition. The PhFBP26 gene was recorded to express in both vegetative and reproductive parts with nearly similar transcript abundance, suggesting their requirement in all over developmental processes while, the PhFBP29 transcripts were detected in leaf and all floral samples with a decreased level in petals of petunia flowers which may suggest, its role in growth and aging processes. The 3-D proteins structure modeling of petunia hybrid (PhFBP9, PhFBP26 and PhFBP29) MADS box proteins were computed by PHYRE2 showed and#945;-helix region 43%, 46% and 42% while, and#946;-sheets 5%, 5% and 7% respectively. The in-silico functio