Genome-wide Survey of the GATA Gene Family in Camptothecin-producing Plant Ophiorrhiza Pumila

Abstract Background: Ophiorrhiza pumila (Rubiaceae) is capable of producing camptothecin (CPT), one monoterpene indole alkaloid extensively employed in the treatment of multiple cancers. Transcription factors (TF) GATA are a group of transcription regulators involved in plant development and metabolism, and show the feature of binding to the GATA motif within the promoters of target genes. However, GATA TFs have not been characterized in O. pumila. Result: In this study, a total of 18 GATA genes classified into four subfamilies were identified, which randomly distributed on 11 chromosomes of O. pumila. Gene replication and homology between O. pumila and other plant species such as Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa, Glycine max, Solanum lycopersicum, and Vitis vinifera genomes were analyzed. Tissue expression pattern revealed that OpGATA7, OpGATA12 and OpGATA13 with higher transcript in leaves, which was correlated with ASA, MK, DXS, CMS, and MECS. OpGATA7, OpGATA14 and OpGATA15 showed high expression in roots as most of the CPT biosynthetic pathway genes did, suggesting that these OpGATAs may be potential candidates regulating CPT biosynthesis in O. pumila.Conclusions: Genome-wide survey of the GATA gene family from Ophiorrhiza pumila provided insights into the involvement of GATA transcription factors in CPT biosynthesis