Abstract:

The NAC (NAM, ATAF1, -2, and CUC2) gene family encodes a large family of plant-specific transcription factors that play diverse roles in plant development and stress regulation. Membrane-bound NAC transcription factors are a group of NAC transcription factors with transmembrane domain. In this study, the sequence of a membrane-bound NAC transcription factor, HbNTL1 was cloned from cDNA and genomic DNA based on the EST sequence of NAC isolated from the cDNA libraries of Hevea brasiliensis latex. Bioinformatics analysis shows that HbNTL1 contained 6 exons and 5 introns within the genomic DNA sequence and have an open reading frame of 1704 bp encoding a protein with 567 amino acids. The estimated molecular mass isoelectric point of HbNTL1 was 62.52 kDa and 4.62 respectively. There was a conserved NAC domain in the N-terminus and transmembrane domain (TM) in the highly divergent C-terminus. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis revealed that HbNTL1 was a member of NAC transcription factor family belonging to NAC2 subgroup and probably play key roles in the development and stress responses in rubber tree.