<i> In silico </i> identification of DELLA proteins in plants of <i>Coffea arabica L.</i> and <i>Ananas comosus </i>L. Merr

Abstract

Gibberellins control various aspects of plants growing and development, including seed germination, stem elongation, leaves expansion, flower and seed development. They are also involved in phase changes in some species, as from vegetative transition to reproductive. Most of these aspects seem to be regulated by DELLA proteins, which are negative regulators of the induced growth by GAs. The asynchronism in flowering processes of coffee and pineapple plants is recognized. This is also directly associated with the low quality of productions of both species. Studies that allow understanding this process are very important. This article shows a characterization in silico of supposed DELLA proteins in the database of CAFEST genome, gene bank of pineapple and GenBank to understand the role of DELLA proteins in the coffee and pineapple flowering processes. Structural similarity and expression profile in silico showed by probable DELLA genes in coffee corroborated the classification of DELLA proteins and suggest the presence of two of them in this specie. In pineapple, after an exhausted search, none of the bank genes proteins from this specie and the GenBank showed DELLA motifs in the four domains with structural functions related to the control of GAs. Nevertheless, in the future these analyses should be repeated due to the possibility that the corresponding sequences of these genes may not be present in the analyzed database. Key words: bioinformatics, CAFEST, flowering process, gibberellins. Abreviaturas:ácido desoxirribonucleico (ADN), ácido desoxirribonucleico complementario (ADNc), banco de secuencias expresadas en cafeto (CAFEST), giberelinas (GAs), Marco abierto de lectura (ORFs), secuencias expresadas contiguas (EST-contigs), secuencias expresadas únicas (EST-singlets).