Identification and expression analysis of NAC family genes in Eleutherococcus senticosus under salt stress

Abstract

Background: The NAC gene family constitutes a distinct group of transcription factors exclusive to plants. They can regulate the growth and development of plants, respond to biotic and abiotic stresses, and participate in the regulation of secondary metabolites. Eleutherococcus senticosus is a plant with important medicinal value, and its active ingredients have shown significant effects in anti-fatigue, immune regulation, and neuroprotection. Analyzing the functions of E.senticosus NAC family genes is of great significance for revealing the molecular mechanism of synthesizing its medicinal ingredients and improving adaptability to adversity.

Methods and results: It was found that the EsNAC gene family contains a total of 118 members, which are distributed on 24 chromosomes. The 118 EsNACs are distributed in 16 subfamilies. The collinearity analysis reveals 112 instances of segmental duplication and 6 instances of tandem duplication within EsNAC.The analysis of cis-acting elements indicates that abscisic acid response elements rank as the most abundantly enriched, succeeded by methyl jasmonate response elements and anaerobic induction regulatory elements. Furthermore, MYB genes play a role in controlling the initiation of drought and the creation of flavonoids in EsNAC.Analysis of transcriptome data reveals that genes with significant expression are predominantly found within the two distinct subfamilies of ONAC022 and AtNAC3. The hypothesis suggests that the genetic roles of these two subfamilies might be involved in stress and augmenting the levels of secondary metabolites. Alterations in the expression of 10 EsNAC genes during salt stress were identified using qRT-PCR. The results show that salt stress particularly influences the expression of EsNAC genes.

Conclusions: This study provides important information for identifying the NAC gene family of E.senticosus and studying the effects of salt stress on the function of EsNAC genes.

Keywords: Eleutherococcus senticosus; Gene expression; Gene family; NAC transcription factor; Salt stress.