Alignment and phylogeny studies of rolC gene of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and their cellular homologues in plants

The focus of the present study is the comparative analysis of rolC gene of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and its cellular homologues present in plants. The occurrence of rolC gene was identified in different species and varieties of Nicotiana, Kalanchoe and Klenia. Initially, the presence of rol genes in plants was identified from the preliminary studies on severe morphological variations, tumorigenesis, rhizogenesis and phytohormone independent growth under culture conditions. The molecular study for the presence or absence of rolC gene homologues in plants was carried out by the PCR amplification of their genomic DNA using rolC gene of A. rhizogenes as primer. The amplified fragments were sequenced and deposited in GenBank. In the present analysis, the rolC gene present in different strains of A. rhizogenes, the novel Genbank accepted rolC gene sequences and their homologous sequences extracted from Genbank were pooled. Multiple sequence alignment and molecular phylogeny were carried out for these nineteen rolC sequences. Results were discussed in terms of the presence of bacterial oncogenes in plants, the donor strain for these genes, the homology, variations and their molecular phylogeny.

Alignment and phylogeny studies of rolC gene of Agrobacterium rhizogenes and their cellular homologues in plants Keywords:

Clustal W2 , Gene transfer , Homologues , Phylogeny , rolC gene , Sequence alignment