In silico analysis of promoter region and regulatory elements of glucan endo-1,3-beta-glucosidase encoding genes in Solanum tuberosum: cultivar DM 1-3 516 R44

BACKGROUND: Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important food crops in the world. Pathogens remain as one of the major constraints limiting potato productivity. Thus, understanding of gene regulation mechanism of pathogenesis-related genes such as glucan endo-1,3-beta-glucosidase is a foundation for genetic engineering of potato for disease resistance and reduces the use of fungicides. In the present study, 19 genes were selected and attempts were made through in silico methods to identify and characterize the promoter regions, regulatory elements, and CpG islands of glucan endo-1,3-beta-glucosidase gene in Solanum tuberosum cultivar DM 1-3 516 R44. RESULTS: The current analysis revealed that single transcription start sites (TSSs) were present in 12/19 (63.2%) of promoter regions analyzed. The predictive score at a cutoff value of 0.8 for the majority (84.2%) of the promoter regions ranged from 0.90 to 1.00. The locations for 42% of the TSSs were below −500 bp relative to the start codon (ATG). MβGII was identified as the common promoter motif for 94.4% of the genes with an E value of 3.5e−001. The CpG analysis showed low CpG density in the promoter regions of most of the genes except for gene ID102593331 and ID: 102595860. The number of SSRs per gene ranged from 2 to 9 with repeat lengths of 2 to 6 bp. Evolutionary distances ranged from 0.685 to 0.770 (mean = 0.73), demonstrating narrower genetic diversity range. Phylogeny was inferred using the UPGMA method, and gene sequences from different species were found to be clustered together. CONCLUSION: In silico identified regulatory elements in promoter regions will contribute to our understanding of the regulatory mechanism of glucan endo-1,3-beta-glucosidase genes and provide a promising target for genetic engineering to improve disease resistance in potatoes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43141-021-00240-0.