ABSTRACT
The Dof (DNA-binding with one finger) proteins are a
class of plant-specific transcription factors that can trigger several processes
involved in plant growth and development, as well as in stress responses. Here,
we performed a systematic bioinformatics analysis to characterize all Dof genes
in common bean, which included analysis of the genome sequence, conserved protein
domains, chromosomal locations, subcellular locations, phylogenetic relationships,
gene duplications, and gene expression profiles in different tissues. Bioinformatics
analysis revealed 36 putative genes related to PvDof that were classified into seven subfamilies (A, B1, B2, C1, C2,
D1, and, D2) by comparative phylogenetic analysis. Based on our genome duplication
analysis, a total of 36 genes were found to be distributed on all 11 chromosomes,
and they expanded through gene duplication in tandem, suggesting the involvement of segmental
duplication events in the evolutionary process. Synteny events and phylogenetic
comparisons of the Dof proteins of common bean with those of A. thaliana, O. sativa, and G. max L. led to the identification of several
orthologous and paralogous genes, which provided further insight into the diversity
of the evolutionary characteristics of genes of this family in other plant species.
Expression profiles revealed that most of the PvDof genes were expressed in different tissues, indicating that PvDof genes may be involved in various physiological
functions during plant development. The results of this study provide additional
information and potential biotechnological resources for further understanding the
molecular basis of this gene family and consequently improvement of common bean
crops.