Cloning of MhWRKY15 gene in Malus hupehensis and its bioinformatics analysis

Abstract：Full-length cDNA sequence of WRKY15 gene from roots of Malus hupehensis （Pamp.） Rehd. var. pinyiensis Jiang, which was tentatively designated as MhWRKYIS, with GenBank accession number GU576874, was acquired by RT-PCR and RACE with primers designed respectively based on the EST sequence. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that MhWRKY15 was 1 091 bp in length, containing an open reading frame of 810 bp and encoding 269 amino acids, and it belonged to group II of WRKY transcription factors and was one member of WRKY15 family. The results also showed that the protein encoded by MhWRKY15 was a soluble protein, with the molecular formula C_1263H_1941N_365O_425S_12, the relative molecular weight was 29 423.2 ku and the isoelectric point was 5.30. There was one conserved WRKY domain in the protein sequence. The protein might be located in nucleus, and there were many phosphorylation sites, N glycosylation sites and O glycosylation sites. The predicted secondary structure demonstrated that random coil was the most important structural conformation.