Genome-wide identification and characterization of COMT gene family during the development of blueberry fruit

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundCaffeic acidO-methyltransferases (COMTs) play an important role in the diversification of natural products, especially in the phenylalanine metabolic pathway of plant. The content ofCOMTgenes in blueberry and relationship between their expression patterns and the lignin content during fruit development have not clearly investigated by now.ResultsNinety-twoVcCOMTswere identified inVaccinium corymbosum. According to phylogenetic analyses, the 92VcCOMTswere divided into 2 groups. The gene structure and conserved motifs within groups were similar which supported the reliability of the phylogenetic structure groupings. Dispersed duplication (DSD) and whole-genome duplication (WGD) were determined to be the major forces inVcCOMTsevolution. The results showed that the results of qRT-PCR and lignin content for 22VcCOMTs,VcCOMT40andVcCOMT92were related to lignin content at different stages of fruit development of blueberry.ConclusionWe identifiedCOMTgene family in blueberry, and performed comparative analyses of the phylogenetic relationships in the 15 species of land plant, and gene duplication patterns ofCOMTgenes in 5 of the 15 species. We found 2VcCOMTswere highly expressed and their relative contents were similar to the variation trend of lignin content during the development of blueberry fruit. These results provide a clue for further study on the roles ofVcCOMTsin the development of blueberry fruit and could promisingly be foundations for breeding blueberry clutivals with higher fruit firmness and longer shelf life.