ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Bioinformatics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1609698
Genome-wide analysis of the COMT gene family in Avena sativa: insights into lignin biosynthesis and disease defense mechanisms
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
- 2National Center of Pratacultural Technology Innovation (under preparation), Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China
- 3Qinghai University, Xining, Qinghai Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Caffeic acid O-methyltransferase (COMT) is a multifunctional enzyme involved in lignin biosynthesis and plays an important role in various primary and secondary metabolic pathways, including the plant stress response. In this study, we identified 37 AsCOMT genes from the oat (Avena sativa) whole-genome database, which are distributed across 11 chromosomes. Phylogenetic analysis grouped these genes into two major subfamilies, indicating that they are highly conserved during evolution and share close relationships with COMT genes from Zea mays and Oryza sativa. Cis-acting elements analysis revealed a rich presence of regulatory motifs related to plant hormone signaling and stress responses. Expression profiling of different oat varieties infected with powdery mildew and leaf spot disease showed significant upregulation or downregulation of several AsCOMT genes (e.g., AsCOMT14, AsCOMT22, AsCOMT24, AsCOMT27). Moreover, disease-resistant oat varieties have higher lignin contents compared to susceptible varieties. Overexpression of AsCOMT23 and AsCOMT27 in tobacco leaves resulted in significantly increased lignin content, highlighting the potential of these genes in lignin biosynthesis. These results offer a preliminary exploration of the role of AsCOMT in both lignin synthesis and the plant stress response, laying the groundwork for further functional studies and potential applications in oat breeding.
Keywords: Caffeic acid O-methyltransferase, Bioinformatics analysis, Expression pattern, Lignin biosynthesis, Plant disease defense
Received: 10 Apr 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pan, Niu, Shen, Zhao, Zhang, Chai and Ju. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kuiju Niu, College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.