| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014787 | Plant Physiology and Biochemistry | 2016 | 10 Pages |
•Seven novel mulberry NHX genes from Morus atropurpurea were identified and isolated.•MaNHXs were divided into three subfamilies (groups I, II and III).•MaNHXs were induced by salt, drought and ABA, as well as SA, MeJA and H2O2.•MaNHX-signaling pathways in different tissues related to NaCl tolerance were found.
Na+/H+ exchangers (NHXs) have important roles in cellular pH, and Na+ and K+ homeostasis in plants. Mulberry is not only an important traditional economic woody plant known for its leaves, which are the exclusive food source of the silkworm Bombyx mori, but it can also adapt to many different adverse conditions, including saline environments. However, little is known about the NHXs in this important perennial tree. In this study, we identified and cloned seven putative NHX gene family members from Morus atropurpurea based on a genome-wide analysis of the Morus genome database. A phylogenetic analysis and genomic organization of mulberry NHXs suggested that the mulberry NHX family forms three distinct subgroups. Transcriptome data and real-time PCR of different mulberry varieties under normal culture conditions revealed that the mulberry NHX family has a different tissue-specific pattern in the two mulberry species. The MaNHX genes' expression analyses under different stresses (salt and drought) and signal molecules (abscisic acid, salicylic acid, hydrogen peroxide and methyl jasmonate) revealed that MaNHXs not only could be induced by salt, drought and abscisic acid as describe in the literature, but were also induced by other signal molecules, which indicated that MaNHX members exhibited diverse and complicated expression patterns in different mulberry tissues under various abiotic stresses, phytohormones and plant signaling molecules. Our results provide some insights into new and emerging cellular and physiological functions of this group of H+-coupled cation exchangers, beyond their function in salt tolerance, and also provide the basis for further characterizations of MaNHXs' physiological functions.
