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Acta Agron Sin ›› 2013, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (12): 2145-2153.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1006.2013.02145

• CROP GENETICS & BREEDING·GERMPLASM RESOURCES·MOLECULAR GENETICS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Classification of Glutamine Synthetase Gene and Preliminary Functional Analysis of the Nodule-Predominantly Expressed Gene GmGS1β2 in Soybean

WANG Xiao-Bo1,TENG Wan2,HE Xue2,TONG Yi-Ping2,*   

  1. 1 School of Agronomy, Anhui Agricultural university, Hefei 230036, China; 2 State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering / Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
  • Received:2013-04-07 Revised:2013-07-25 Online:2013-12-12 Published:2013-10-01

Abstract:

The purpose of this study was to analyze the evolution, classification and tissue expression specificity of soybean cytosolic glutamine synthetase genes. Glutamine synthetase (GS) proteins from 12 species were downloaded from phytozome database, and used for phylogenetic analysis. The GSs were divided into two groups, cytosolic glutamine synthetase (GS1) and plastidic glutamine synthetase (GS2) based on the maximum likelihood of MEGA 5.10 software. The GS1 group was further divided into five subgroups, including three dicotyledons subgroups (I, II, and III), lower plants subgroup (IV) and monocotyledons subgroup (V). All GSs in subgroup II were mainly derived from leguminous plants including four GmGS1 proteins (GmGS1β1/2 and GmGS1γ1/2) in soybean. Real-time RT-PCR analysis of GmGS1 genes indicated that soybean GS duplicated genes had the same tissue specificity of expression, while the four subgroup II GmGS1 genes presented higher expression level in soybean nodules than in other tissues. Among the six GmGS1 genes, GmGS1β2 located on chromosome 18 had the highest expression level and predominantly expressed in developing nodules. GmGS1β2 was then ligated into pGEX4T-1 vector and transformed into BL21 (DE3) for prokaryotic expression. GmGS1β2 recombinant protein was purified by 4B-Beads and tested for GS activity by spectrophotometer. Prokaryotic expression result showed that the molecular weight of GmGS1β2 was 39 kD, which is consistent with previous theoretical prediction. Catalyzing reaction showed that the recombinant protein had glutamine synthetase activity, which means GmGS1β2 encoded a functional GmGS1β2 glutamine synthetase. These results provide useful information for further functional research of GS1 proteins involved in nitrogen assimilation in soybean nodule.

Key words: Glycine max (L.) Merr, GmGS1 genes, Tissue specific expression, Glutamine synthetase activity

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