Molecular characterization of 60 isolated wheat MYB genes and analysis of their expression during abiotic stress

The proteins of the MYB superfamily play central roles in developmental processes and defence responses in plants. Sixty unique wheat MYB genes that contain full-length cDNA sequences were isolated. These 60 genes were grouped into three categories, namely one R1R2R3-MYB, 22 R2R3-MYBs, and 37 MYB-related members. The sequence composition of the R2 and R3 repeats was conserved among the 22 wheat R2R3-MYB proteins. Phylogenetic comparison of the members of this superfamily among wheat, rice, and Arabidopsis revealed that the putative functions of some wheat MYB proteins were clustered into the Arabidopsis functional clades. Tissue-specific expression profiles showed that most of the wheat MYB genes were expressed in all of the tissues examined, suggesting that wheat MYB genes take part in multiple cellular processes. The expression analysis during abiotic stress identified a group of MYB genes that respond to one or more stress treatments. The overexpression of a salt-inducible gene, TaMYB32, enhanced the tolerance to salt stress in transgenic Arabidopsis. This study is the first comprehensive study of the MYB gene family in Triticeae.