• Dan Zhuang

      Articles written in Journal of Genetics

    • Identification and expression analysis of primary auxin-responsive Aux/IAA gene family in cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

      Defang Gan Dan Zhuang Fei Ding Zhenzhou Yu Yang Zhao

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      Aux/IAA is an important gene family involved in many aspects of growth and development. Aux/IAA proteins are short-lived nuclear proteins that are induced primarily by various phytohormones. In this study, 29 Aux/IAA family genes (CsIAA01–CsIAA29) were identified and characterized in cucumber, including gene structures, phylogenetic relationships, conserved protein motifs and chromosomal locations. These genes show distinct organizational patterns of their putative motifs. The distributions of the genes vary: except for five CsIAA genes in cucumber that were not located, seven CsIAA genes were found on scaffold, while the other 17 CsIAA genes were distributed on seven other chromosomes. Based on a phylogenetic analysis of the Aux/IAA protein sequences from cucumber, Arabidopsis and other plants, the Aux/IAA genes in cucumber were categorized into seven subfamilies. To investigate whether the expression of CsIAA genes is associated with auxin induction, their transcript levels were monitored in seedlings treated with IAA (indole-3-acetic acid), and their expression patterns were analysed by semiquantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The results showed that 11/29 CsIAA genes were expressed in leaves whether treated with IAA or not and the time course of processing and compared with the control, five CsIAA genes showed low expression only after 60 min treatment with IAA, while 11 genes showed no expression. These results provide useful information for further functional analysis of Aux/IAA gene family in cucumber.

    • Application of RNA interference methodology to investigate and develop SCMV resistance in maize

      Defang Gan Fei Ding Dan Zhuang Haiyang Jiang Tong Jiang Suwen Zhu Beijiu Cheng

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      Specific fragments of the sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) coat protein gene (cp) were amplified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and used to construct a marker free small interfering RNA complex expression vector against SCMV. In planta transformation was performed on maize (Zea mays) inbred line 8112 mediated by Agrobacterium tumefaciens. PCR and Southern blot analyses demonstrated successful integration of the cp segment into the 8112 genome. The in planta transformation frequency was 0.1%, and the cotransformed frequency with the cp and bar genes was 0.034%. Realtime quantitative PCR of samples from different transgenic plant organs showed that the expression of the cp gene fragment in transgenic plants was variable and that the highest expression level occurred in the tassels and leaves and the lowest expression occurred in the roots. Real-time quantitative PCR was also used to measure how gene expression in transgenic T2 generation plants inoculated with SCMV changes over time. The results showed that the hairpin RNA structure transcribed from the cp gene interfered with SCMV infection and transgenic maize lines were not equally effective in preventing SCMV infection. Our findings provide a valuable tool for controlling plant viruses using RNA interference and the posttranslational gene silencing approach.

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