First report for availability of HRT-like genes in Eragrostis tef and in silico analysis for elucidating their potential functions

Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Troetter] is called ‘super grain’ because of its healthy and nutritious seeds along with compatibility to suboptimal environment. Plant Transcription factors (TFs) are key regulators of gene expression which affect transcription through interaction with proteins and DNA binding. Hordeum Repressor Transcription (HRT) are one of TF gene families with too scanty of information on their abundance, distribution, motifs, phylogenetic relationship among plants, promoter and association network analysis on cereals including tef. CoGeBlast, MEME, MEGA X and PLANTCARE were employed accordingly. Two HRT-like TFs (ET) were identified residing on chromosome 5A and 5B, the proteins exhibit CH residue at the C- terminal end and GIY-YIG domain in the N-terminal. The phylogenetic tree obtained depicted orthology in HRT genes in S. bicolor and Z. mays; O. sativa and O. glaberrima, S. italica and S. virdis; and H. vulgare and T. aestivum and homeologous pairs in E. tef. From the promoter analysis of EtHRTs, CRE elements like ABRE, MYBs, G-box, GC-motif, TC-rich repeats, O2-site were identified known to involve in the control of hormones, sugars and abiotic stresses (ABA, GA, zein and α-amylase) confirming the involvement/role of HRT-like TFs in growth, development and stress response of tef. The study contributes for the understanding of structure and function of HRT-like TFs among plants.