Expression profile, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of genes involved in hydrogen sulphide metabolism connecting the balance between development and stress adaptation in plants: a data-mining bioinformatics approach

Recent research focused on novel aspects of sulphur and sulphur-containing molecules in fundamental plant processes has highlighted the importance of these compounds. Currently, the focus has shifted to the efficacy of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) as signalling compounds that regulate different development and stress mitigation in plants. Accordingly, we used an in silico approach to study the differential expression patterns of H2S metabolic genes at different growth/development stages and their tissue-specific expression patterns under a range of abiotic stresses. Moreover, to understand the multilevel regulation of genes involved in H2S metabolism, we performed computation-based promoter analysis, alternative splice variant analysis, prediction of putative miRNA targets and co-expression network analysis. Gene expression analysis suggests that H2S biosynthesis is highly influenced by developmental and stress stimuli. The functional annotation of promoter structures reveales a wide range of plant hormone and stress responsive cis-regulatory elements (CREs) that regulate H2S metabolism. Co-expression analysis suggested that genes involved in H2S metabolism are also associated with different metabolic processes. In this data-mining study, the primary focus was to understand the genetic architecture governing pathways of H2S metabolism in different cell compartments under various developmental and stress signalling cascades. The present study will help to understand the genetic architecture of H2S metabolism via cysteine metabolism and the functional roles of these genes in development and stress tolerance mechanisms.