Identification of the trehalose-6-phosphate synthase gene family in winter wheat and expression analysis under conditions of freezing stress

Trehalose plays an important role in metabolic regulation and abiotic stress tolerance in plants. Trehalose contents are potentially modulated by trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS), which is a key enzyme in the trehalose biosynthetic pathway. Using available wheat expressed sequence tag sequence information from NCBI and two wheat genome databases, we identified 12 wheat TPS genes and performed a comprehensive study on their structural, evolutionary and functional properties. The estimated divergence time of wheat TPS gene pairs and wheat-rice orthologues suggested that wheat and rice have a common ancestor. The number of TPS genes in the wheat genome was estimated to be at least 12, which is close to the number found in rice, Arabidopsis and soybean. Moreover, it has been reported earlier in other plants that TPS genes respond to abiotic stress, however, our study mainly analysed the TPS gene family under freezing conditions in winter wheat, and determined that most of the TPS gene expression in winter wheat was induced by freezing conditions, which further suggested that wheat TPS genes were involved in winter wheat freeze-resistance signal transduction pathways. Taken together, the current study represents the first comprehensive study of TPS genes in winter wheat and provides a foundation for future functional studies of this important gene family in Triticeae.