Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) genes family in wheat (Triticum aestivum): Genome-wide identification, characterization, phylogenetic relationship and expression patterns

Background: Alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) plays important roles in plant survival under anaerobic conditions. Although some research has been carried out the functions of ADH in other plants, that of wheat TaADH family genes in response to abiotic stress are unclear. Results A total of 22 ADH genes were obtained from 14 chromosomes of the wheat genome by systematic screening. Multiple sequence alignment and evolutionary relationship show that these genes contain the characteristics of GroES-like domain and Zinc-binding domain, and these belong to Medium-chain -ADH type and can be divided into three subfamilies. There are 17 pairs of fragment replication genes among TaADH family members in the wheat genome, while there are 9 pairs of collinear gene pairs from ADH family members between wheat and rice genome. We speculate that these fragment repetition events may be the main reason for the amplification of TaADH family genes. Ka/Ks analysis indicated that there were 64 repetitive gene pairs, and the Ka/Ks value of these gene pairs was less than 1, which indicated that these sequences of TaADH gene were relatively conservative and did not change greatly in the process of evolution. Promoter element analysis showed that almost all of the upstream promoters of these genes contained the responsive anaerobic inducible element. Tissue localized expression and expression patterns also demonstrated that the TaADH genes responded to abiotic stress and may play an important role in waterlogging stress during the seed germination stage. Conclusions The results of this study may be helpful to further study the function of TaADH genes and determine the candidate gene for wheat stress resistance breeding.