Comparative analysis of ascorbate peroxidases (APXs) from selected plants with a special focus on Oryza sativa employing public databases

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are produced by plants. Hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) is one important component of ROS and able to modulate plant growth and development at low level and damage plant cells at high concentrations. Ascorbate peroxidase (APX) shows high affinity towards H(2)O(2) and plays vital roles in H(2)O(2)-scavenging. In order to explore the differences of APXs from selected plant species, bioinformatics methods and public databases were used to evaluate the physicochemical properties, conserved motifs, potential modifications and cis-elements in all the APXs, and protein-protein network and expression profiles of rice APXs. The results suggested that APXs in the selected plant species showed high evolutionary conservation and were able to divide into seven groups, group I to VII. Members in the groups contained abundant phosphorylation sites. Interestingly, group I and VII had only PKC site. Additionally, promoters of the APXs contained abundant stress-related cis-elements. APXs in rice plant were able to interact with dehydroascorbate reductase 2. The eight APXs expressed differently in root, leaf, panicle, anther, pistil and seed. Drought, Pi-free, Cd and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola B8-12 treatments were able to significantly alter the expression profiles of rice APXs. This study increases our knowledge to further explore functions and mechanisms of APXs and also guides their applications.