水稻与拟南芥跨膜蛋白14家族的分子进化特征与功能分析

脂类既是植物生命活动重要的能量来源,也是细胞膜系统不可或缺的结构成分,在植物生长发育和逆境反应等生命活动过程中都起到至关重要的作用。随着脂类代谢研究的不断深入,植物脂类合成通路已渐渐明晰,其中连通不同细胞器间脂类合成中间物质运送的膜蛋白也正被不断发现,但对质体脂类转运蛋白还鲜有报道。跨膜蛋白14家族(Transmembrane 14 family, Tmemb14 family)是一个新发现的跨膜蛋白家族,目前只有拟南芥FAX1 (Fatty Acid Export 1)和斑马鱼TMEM14已被克隆鉴定,该家族其他成员的生物学功能还未见报道。AtFAX1参与植物质体长链脂肪酸的跨膜外运,其功能丧失显著降低植物生物量并影响花粉发育和育性。本研究通过生物信息手段对拟南芥和水稻中的跨膜蛋白14家族成员的进化关系、蛋白理化性质、结构域功能和编码基因的表达模式进行了分析,揭示了Tmemb14家族成员在单、双子叶植物进化中的功能分化,为进一步研究跨膜蛋白14家族成员的生理功能提供了理论依据。

Bioinformatics Analysis on Evolutionary Properties and Functions of Transmembrane 14 Family in Arabidopsis and Rice

Lipids, the important energy resources of plants and the essential structural components of membrane systems, play indispensable roles in plant development and responses to stresses. As the advances in studies on lipid metabolism, most plant lipid metabolic pathways, including those membrane localized transport proteins that transport intermediates and end products of lipid metabolism out and from different organelles, have been elucidated, however, transporters responsible for the lipid transport across plastid membranes are largely unknown.Transmembrane 14 family(Tmemb14 family) is a newly discovered transmembrane protein family, except Arabidopsis Fatty Acid Export 1(AtFAX1) and zebrafish TMEM14, none of them has been functional characterized.At FAX1 is reported to be involved in the export of long chain fatty acids generated in plastid across plastid inner membrane, loss of function of AtFAX1 significantly reduces biomass and affects pollen development and male fertility. In this study, taking the advantage of bioinformatics approach, we investigated into the evolutionary aspects, the physical and chemical properties, the functions of structure domains and the expression patterns of genes encoding those transmembrane 14 family proteins in Arabidopsis and rice. Our study highlighted the functional differentiation of transmembrane 14 family members in the evolution of monocotyledons and dicotyledons, and provided a solid theoretical basis for further studies on physiological functions of those transmembrane 14 family proteins in plants.