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Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of ammonium transporter 1 (AMT1) gene family in cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and functional analysis of MeAMT1;1 in transgenic Arabidopsis

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Abstract

Nitrogen (N), a fundamental macronutrient for plant growth and development, is absorbed from the soil primarily in the form of ammonium (NH4+) and uptaken through a plant’s ammonium transporters (AMTs). While AMT proteins have been documented within diverse plant taxa, there has been no systematic analysis of their activity in cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), which is highly resistant to nitrogen deficiency. Here, we perform a comprehensive genome-wide analysis to identify and characterize the functional dynamics of cassava ammonium transporters 1 (MeAMT1). We identified a total of six AMT1 genes in the cassava genome (MeAMT1;1 to MeAMT1;6), the phylogenetic analysis of which fell into three distinct subgroups based on the conserved motifs and gene structures. Collinearity analysis showed that segmental duplication events played a key role in expansion of the MeAMT1 gene family. Synteny analysis indicated that two MeAMT1 genes were orthologous to Arabidopsis and rice. MeAMT1 promoters were additionally found to include various cis-acting elements related to light responsiveness, hormones, stress, and development processes. According to the RNA-seq data, the majority of MeAMT1 genes displayed specific patterns in the tested tissues. qRT-PCR revealed that all the tested MeAMT1 genes were up-regulated by low ammonium exposure. Furthermore, Arabidopis transformed with MeAMT1;1 gene grew well than wild-type plants in response to ammonium deficiency, suggesting that MeAMT1s play important role in response to low ammonium. Overall, our work lays the groundwork for new understanding of the AMT1 gene family in cassava and provides a basis for breeding efficient nitrogen use in other plants.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by High-level Talents Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research Program of Hainan Province (in Natural Science) (No. 2019RC046), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFD1000500 and 2018YFE0207203-2); Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation (318QN189, 319MS009); the Education Department of Hainan Province (Hys2020-242, Hnky2021-19), and the Startup funding from Hainan University (No. KYQD(ZR)1845).

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  1. Youquan Xia, Yindi Liu and Tingting Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Quality Regulation of Tropical Horticultural Crops of Hainan Province, School of Horticulture, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Youquan Xia, Tingting Zhang & Yang Zhou

  2. Hainan Key Laboratory for Biotechnology of Salt Tolerant Crops, School of Tropical Crops, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Yindi Liu, Yu Wang & Xingyu Jiang

  3. School of Life and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Youquan Xia

  4. Medical College, Hexi University, Zhangye, 734000, China

    Youquan Xia

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  1. Youquan Xia
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  4. Yu Wang
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Contributions

YZ and XJ conceived and designed the experiments. YX, YL, TZ and YW performed the experiments. YX, TZ, XJ and YZ contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. YX, YZ and XJ wrote and revised the paper. All authors read and approved the work reported.

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Correspondence to Xingyu Jiang or Yang Zhou.

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Xia, Y., Liu, Y., Zhang, T. et al. Genome-wide identification and expression analysis of ammonium transporter 1 (AMT1) gene family in cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and functional analysis of MeAMT1;1 in transgenic Arabidopsis. 3 Biotech 12, 4 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-021-03070-6

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