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Genome-wide analysis of maize MBD gene family and expression profiling under abiotic stress treatment at the seedling stage

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Abstract

Methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) proteins in plants are important trans-acting factors specifically recognizing methylated DNA. The MBD proteins can compact chromatins to repress transcription by recruiting chromatin-modifying complexes that contain histone deacetylase activities and chromatin remodeling factors, and play a crucial biological role in the growth and development in plants. Currently, very little is known regarding the structure and function of MBD genes in plants. In this study, we performed a genome-wide identification and expression profile analysis of maize MBD genes (ZmMBDs) from the latest version of the maize (B73) genome. By analyzing phylogenetic relationship of MBD gene families from Arabidopsis, rice, wheat, and maize, all 14 MBD proteins in maize were categorized into four subclasses. Furthermore, chromosome location and schematic structure revealed an unevenly distribution on chromosomes and structure features of MBD genes in maize, respectively. Eventually, EST expression data mining, microarray data clustering analysis, and semi-quantitative and quantitative expression profile analyses detected in seedling leaves and stems by heat, drought, and salt-stress treatments have demonstrated that these genes had temporal and spatial expression pattern and exhibited different expression levels under heat, drought, and salt-stress conditions, suggesting that functional diversification of the MBD gene family in maize. In addition, through electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) a representative MBD protein, ZmMBD11, exhibited in vitro DNA-binding activity, indicating that that the MBD proteins in maize might play a role in reading cytosine methylation. Taken together, these results would provide an important theoretical basis for future functional verification of ZmMBD genes and also facilitate future experimental research to further unravel the mechanisms of epigenetic regulation in plants.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.31571673) and the Anhui Provincial University Excellent Youth Talent Support Program (No. 06146007) and the open funding of National Engineering Laboratory of Crop Stress Resistance Breeding (No.KNZJ1023). The authors are grateful to the reviewers and editors for their helpful comments on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anhui Provincial Key Lab. of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resources, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, 241000, China

    Yexiong Qian, Qiaoyu Ren, Lingyu Jiang, Jing Zhang & Changle Chen

  2. Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Liang Chen

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  1. Yexiong Qian
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Contributions

These studies were designed by Dr. QJ LY, CCL, RQY, ZJ, and CL carried out all the experimental analyses and prepared all figures and tables. The manuscript was drafted by Dr. Q. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yexiong Qian.

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Qian, Y., Ren, Q., Jiang, L. et al. Genome-wide analysis of maize MBD gene family and expression profiling under abiotic stress treatment at the seedling stage. Plant Biotechnol Rep 14, 323–338 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-020-00607-8

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