Identification of Sorghum GAox Gene Family and their Expression Analysis during Seed Germination

Jiang Yuwen; Ren Yan; Chen Manjing; Zhao Qiang; Zhang Guobing; Shen Jiaqi; Gao Xu; Shao Mingbo

doi:10.14083/j.issn.1001-4942.2025.07.002

Abstract：The GAox family are the key enzymes in the gibberellin synthesis pathway.This study conduc-ted identification and bioinformatics analysis of the GAox family in sorghum(Sorghum bicolor L.)and valida-ted the expression of GAox genes during seed germination using qRT-PCR.The results showed that a total of 16 GAox gene family members were identified,and they unevenly distributed on 6 chromosomes and encoded 323 to 498 amino acids.These GAox proteins were hydrophilic proteins located in the cytoplasm with isoelectric point as 4.80 to 9.58,instability index as 36.17 to 54.87,and fat coefficient as 69.29 to 90.81.Through phy-logenetic analysis,it was found that the GAox gene family could be divided into four subfamilies as GA20ox,GA3ox,C20GA2ox and C19GA2ox,which contained 4,2,3 and 7 members,respectively.The intra-and in-ter-group collinearity analysis of GAox genes showed that 5 pairs of duplicated genes were identified in sor-ghum,and 29 pairs of collinearity genes were found between sorghum and rice.Through the analysis of gene structure and conserved motifs,it was found that the sorghum GAox gene family members contained 1 to 4 ex-ons,0 to 3 introns and 15 conserved motifs.All the 16 sorghum GAox members contained abscisic acid re-sponse elements,jasmonic acid methyl ester response elements and light response elements,suggesting their functions related to plant growth and development,light response and plant hormones.Further analysis of ex-pression patterns showed that the expression of sorghum GAox genes was tissue-specific,suggesting different functions in sorghum growth and development.The qRT-PCR analysis revealed that the 16 genes were upregu-lated during seed germination,but the expression peak occurred at different time,which suggested that differ-ent GAox genes might play roles at different germination stages of sorghum seeds.These results could provide a theoretical basis for subsequent functional research of the sorghum GAox genes.