Comparative Analysis of Promoters of DREB2B Transcription Factor Genes in Deschampsia antarctica and Other Grasses

The organization of promoters of DREB2B TF ortholog genes involved in the response to abiotic stresses was studied in D. antarctica E. Desv. extremophile plant and 12 more grass species with different cold and drought resistance. The evolutionary distances between the sequences of promoters were 0.621 on average, those between coding sequences (including introns) were 0.442, and the values of nucleotide diversity (π) for these regions were 0.410 and 0.274, respectively. Clustering of sequences corresponded in general to the accepted systematic division of the Poaceae family into subfamilies. Fifty-four cis -elements involved in the response to abiotic and biotic stresses, light, hormones (particularly, abscisic acid, auxin, methyl jasmonate, ethylene, gibberellin, and salicylic acid), and tissue-specific cis -elements were identified. Most of the cis -elements were associated with the response to abiotic stress that is consistent with data on DREB2B TF functions. Except for single peculiarities, representatives of different grass subfamilies and D. antarctica were similar in the total set of cis -elements in the DREB2B promoter that indicates the similarity of the regulation of expression of this gene and its potential functions in the response to stress in the studied species.