ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Functional and Applied Plant Genomics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1682513
Genome-wide Identification of the OVATE Gene Family of Proteins in Soybean and Expression Profiling under Salt Stress
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Life Sciences, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China
- 2College of Agronomy, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 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
OVATE family proteins (OFPs), a class of plant-specific transcription factors, have been increasingly demonstrated to play pivotal roles in multiple aspects of plant growth and development. However, their functional characterization in soybean (Glycine max) remains largely unexplored. In this study, we conducted a genome-wide identification of OFP genes in soybean, followed by comprehensive analyses, including phylogenetic reconstruction, gene structure characterization, conserved motif and sequence alignment assessments, chromosomal localization, collinearity evaluation, promoter cis-acting element profiling, transcriptome-based expression pattern investigation, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction validation. Key findings revealed that the soybean genome harbors 42 GmOFP genes, all of which contain the conserved OVATE domain and are distributed unevenly across 19 chromosomes. Most members of this gene family exhibit single-exon architectures, with conserved motif analysis demonstrating that Motif 1 and Motif 2 collectively constitute the OVATE domain. Collinearity analysis indicated that a majority of GmOFPs underwent duplication events during evolution. Promoter analysis revealed abundant cis-regulatory elements associated with abiotic stress responses, hormonal regulation, light responsiveness, and growth-related processes. Expression profiling revealed that GmOFP genes exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns across various soybean organs, with several GmOFP genes showing differential responsiveness to salt stress. These findings provide crucial insights into the molecular characteristics and potential biological functions of GmOFPs, establishing a theoretical foundation for further investigations into their regulatory mechanisms in soybean growth, development, and stress adaptation.
Keywords: Soybean, Ovate Family Protein, salt stress, Growth, development
Received: 09 Aug 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhan, Wang, Zhang, Yu and Ni. 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:
Yuehua Yu, College of Agronomy, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, China
Zhi-yong Ni, College of Life Sciences, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi, 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.