Cloning and expression analysis of Cucumis sativus L. CER4 involved in cuticular wax biosynthesis in cucumber

Abstract

Eceriferum (cer) genes are a group of genes that have functions in wax biosynthesis, which play important roles in plant epidermal permeability, drought resistance, fertility, and organ fusion. In this study, CsCER4, an AtCER4 homologue, was cloned from cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). The full-length cDNA of CsCER4 is 1464 bp, encoding a protein with 487 amino acid residues. CsCER4 was expressed in all analysed tissues, including leaves, male flowers, female flowers, and fruit. Its expression level among fruit development increased and then decreased, and the expression was markedly different between 3413 (glossy type cucumber) and 3401 (waxy type cucumber), suggesting that CsCER4 has a role in wax biosynthesis.

Keywords:

• Cucumber
• wax biosynthesis
• CsCER4
• gene

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members of Prof. Hou’s Laboratory for helpful discussions and technical assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Key research and development projects of Shanxi Province [201703D211001], the Natural Science Foundation of Shanxi Province [201701D221155] and the Science and Technology Innovation Foundation of Shanxi Agricultural University [2015YJ14].