Genome-Wide Screening and Characterization of Methyl-CpG-Binding Domain (MBD) Proteins in Species.

Methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) proteins play vital roles in epigenetic gene regulation, and they have diverse molecular, cellular, and biological functions in plants. MBD proteins have been functionally characterized in a few plant species. However, the structure and function of MBD proteins in and remain unknown. In this study, 12 MBD (AhMBD) and 13 MBD (AlMBD) genes were identified. A phylogenetic analysis of the genus showed that the MBD proteins of three species (, , and ) could be classified into eight classes. Expression patterns suggested that the genes were expressed in different tissues. We characterized the function of and found that it was constitutively localized to the nucleus and interacted with several AtMBD protein members. Our results reveal that is involved in the development of , which may be helpful in further studies on these genes in and .