Genome-Wide Identification of Family Genes Involved in Drought and Heat Stresses in Strawberry ().

Basic leucine zipper (bZIP) genes are known to play a crucial role in response to various processes in plant as well as abiotic or biotic stress challenges. We have performed an identification and characterization of 50 genes across the woodland strawberry () genome, which were divided into 10 clades according to the phylogenetic relationship of the strawberry bZIP proteins with those in and rice. Five categories of intron patterns were observed within basic and hinge regions of the bZIP domains. Some additional conserved motifs have been found with the group specificity. Further, we predicted DNA-binding specificity of the basic and hinge regions as well as dimerization properties of leucine zipper regions, which was consistent with our phylogenetic clade and classified into 20 subfamilies. Across the different developmental stages of 15 organs and two types of fruits, the clade A members showed different tissue-specific expression patterns and the duplicated genes were differentially regulated, indicating a functional diversification coupled with the expansion of this gene family in strawberry. Under normal growth conditions, and of clade A showed very weak expression levels in organs and fruits, respectively; but higher expression was observed with different set of genes following drought and heat treatment, which may be caused by the separate response pathway between drought and heat treatments.