Identification and expression pattern analysis of PAL family genes in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract:

To study the important role of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, as a key enzyme in the phenylpropanoid metabolic pathway, in plant response to environmental stresses, the genomic information of Arabidopsis thaliana was downloaded from Phytozome and the PAL members were further identified by HMMER, Pfam and SMART tools. The physicochemical properties, secondary structure and conserved motifs of nine PAL proteins were analyzed. The results showed that the secondary structure of PAL members in Arabidopsis thaliana was mainly composed of α -helix and random curl. Leu and Ala were the most abundant amino acid residues. There were 20 different conserved motifs in the PAL gene family of Arabidopsis thaliana, among which motif 6 containing active site ASG appeared in all PAL genes. The analysis of cis-acting elements showed that the PAL gene family contained many elements related to light response, hormone response, stress response and growth and development. The mRNA expression levels of AT3G53260.1, AT3G53260.2 and AT3G47660.1 showed obvious changes based on transcriptome analysis, and the corresponding tendency was verified by further real-time PCR. Therefore, these 3 genes might be involved in the response to drought and salt stress of Arabidopsis thaliana. These results indicate that PAL genes play an important role in regulating plant growth and development and abiotic stress response.