Genome-Wide Identification and Expression Analysis of and Genes in Wheat ( L.) during Its Development.

Microtubules play a fundamental role in plant development, morphogenesis, and cytokinesis; they are assembled from heterodimers containing an α-tubulin (TUA) and a β-tubulin (TUB) protein. However, little research has been conducted on the TUA and TUB gene families in hexaploid wheat ( L.). In this study, we identified 15 and 28 genes in wheat. Phylogenetic analysis showed that 15 genes were divided into two major subfamilies, and 28 genes were divided into five major subfamilies. Mostly, there were similar motif compositions and exon-intron structures among the same subfamilies. Segmental duplication of genes (WGD/segmental) is the main process of TaTUA and TaTUB gene family expansion in wheat. It was found that and genes presented specific temporal and spatial characteristics based on the expression profiles of 17 tissues during wheat development using publicly available RNA-seq data. It was worth noting, via qRT-PCR, that two and five genes were highly expressed in fertile anthers compared to male sterility. These were quite different between physiological male sterile lines and S-type cytoplasmic male sterile lines at different stages of pollen development. This study offers fundamental information on the TUA and TUB gene families during wheat development and provides new insights for exploring the molecular mechanism of wheat male sterility.