Tang Rui , Ni Han , Yajing Hu , Lixue Wang , Zhonghai Ren , Lina Wang

College of Horticultural Science and Engineering, Shandong Agricultural University, Shandong Collaborative Innovation Center of Fruit & Vegetable Quality and Efficient Production, Key Laboratory of Biology and Genetic Improvement of Horticultural Crops in Huang-Huai Region, Ministry of Agriculture, State Key Laboratory of Corp Biology, Tai’an, 271018
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2020, Vol. 10, No. 1   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2020.10.0001
Received: 20 May, 2020    Accepted: 26 May, 2020    Published: 12 Jun., 2020

This article was first published in Molecular Plant Breeding in Chinese, and here was authorized to translate and publish the paper in English under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Tang R., Han N., Hu Y.J., Wang L.X., Ren Z.H., and Wang L.N., 2020, Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of GRAS genes in cucumber, International Journal of Horticulture, 10(1): 1-9 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2020.10.0001)

GRAS transcription factors regulate various biological processes in plant growth, development and stress responses. Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is an economically important vegetable crop. However, the biological functions of GRAS gene family remain largely unknown in cucumber. In order to explore the potential function of the GRAS gene family in cucumber, the whole genomic identification of CsGRAS family was performed, and the gene structure, protein structure, characteristic, subcellular locations, phylogenetic relationship and tissue expression pattern were analyzed by bioinformatics. Here, a total of 37 GRAS members were identified in cucumber genome, most of the CsGRAS proteins are neutral or acidic protein, which are encoded by a single exon. Phylogenetic analysis divided CsGRAS members into 16 subfamilies, with each having distinct conserved domains and functions. 37 GRAS genes are unevenly distributed on the 7 chromosomes of cucumber and contain 1 pair of tandem repeat genes and 3 pairs of fragment repeat genes. Gene expression analysis in various tissues demonstrated that most CsGRAS genes showed tissue-specific expression, uncovering their potential function in cucumber growth and development. This study provided a comprehensive analysis of the cucumber GRAS gene family and laid a foundation for further studying the roles of GRAS gene family members in cucumber.

Cucumber; GRAS gene family; Bioinformatics analysis; Expression pattern