Masoumeh Dorafshan - Department of Plant Breeding, Ahvaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran
Mahdi Soltani Howyzeh - Department of Plant Breeding, Ahvaz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahvaz, Iran
Vahid Shariati - National Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Tehran, Iran

In higher plants, the phloem as a living tissue functions of transporting the nutrients from leaves to different tissues, such as roots, fruits, flowers, etc., that is composed of micromolecule and macromolecule including amino acids, proteins, RNAs and hormones. The primary phloem have bundles of sieve elements, companion cells, fascicular phloem (FP) and also in the outer part extra fascicular phloem (EFP). Extra fascicular phloem formed an complex network of longitudinal peri-fascicular strands next to the vascular bundles phloem Called anastomosing that interconnects the vascular bundles to the petiole and stem, effectively known as a strategic defense against pests and diseases, that contain cucurbitacins, terpenoids, alkaloids and proteins. Cucurbitacea family are a unique models for extra fascicular phloem biology. One of the most common genes identified in the EFP is PP1/PP2 proteins. In this study, the bioinformatics analysis with the Sequence Viewer CLC 7 software examined for PP1/PP2 genes in plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family. The results of PP1/PP2 genes alignment showed that these genes had high preservation in domains, and the results of phylogeny tree showed a close evolutionary relationship among studied species.

Citrullus colocynthis, Extrafascicular phloem, PP1/PP2 protein, CLC