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Journal of Tea Science ›› 2024, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (3): 386-398.doi: 10.13305/j.cnki.jts.2024.03.001

• Research Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Identification and Expression Pattern Analysis of STOP Gene Family in Tea Plants (Camellia sinensis)

LONG Lu1, TANG Dandan1,2,*, CHEN Wei1,2, TAN Liqiang1,2, CHEN Shengxiang1,2, TANG Qian1,2,*   

  1. 1. College of Horticulture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China;
    2. Tea Refining and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 611130, China
  • Received:2023-11-10 Revised:2024-04-09 Online:2024-06-15 Published:2024-07-08

Abstract: STOP (Sensitive to proton rhizotoxicity) is a type of C2H2 zinc finger transcription factor, and it plays an important regulatory role in various stress tolerance mechanisms in higher plants. A total of 6 STOP genes were identified based on the whole genome data of tea plant (Camellia sinensis), and analyzed by bioinformatics and real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. The results show that the six CsSTOP genes encoded 376-505 amino acids, their molecular weights were 42.17-56.36 kDa, and their theoretical isoelectric points were 5.53-8.85, all of which were unstable proteins. Conserved domain analysis of the proteins shows that they all contained zf-C2H2 conserved domain. Phylogenetic analysis shows that tea plant has high homology with Arabidopsis, Citrus sinensis and Nicotiana tabacum. Cis-acting element analysis of the promoter shows that CsSTOPs contain many elements related to growth and development, hormone response and abiotic stress. Transcriptome data analysis of different tissues shows that the expression level of CsSTOP1 was the higher in roots, fruits and mature leaves, the expression level of CsSTOP2 was the higher in young leaves, the expression level of CsSTOP3 was the higher in old leaves, and the expression levels of CsSTOP4 and CsSTOP5 were low in all tissues. The expressions of different CsSTOP genes were induced by PEG-induced drought stress, salt stress, methyl jasmonate stress and cold stress, indicating that CsSTOP genes were involved in the regulation of growth and development of tea plants and response to abiotic stress. Fluorescence quantitative PCR detection shows that the expression levels of CsSTOPs, CsGS1s and CsGDHs in leaves and roots of 'Emeiwenchun' treated with high NH4+ concentration (4.5 mmol·L-1) were higher than those in the control treatment (CK). Particularly, the expression levels of CsSTOPs, CsGS1.1, CsGS1.3 and CsGDH2 were significantly higher than CK in leaves treated with high NH4+ concentration. In this study, the basic characteristics and functions of CsSTOPs were preliminarily analyzed, and it was found that CsSTOPs could coordinate with CsGS1s and CsGDHs genes to regulate the process of tea plant adaptation to high NH4+ environmental availability.

Key words: tea plant, STOP gene family, bioinformatics analysis, gene expression

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