Abstract
Auxin/Indole-3-Acetic Acid (Aux/IAA) and Auxin Response Factor (ARF) transcription factors are key regulators of auxin responses in plants. A total of 35 Aux/IAA and 39 ARF genes were identified in the Populus genome. Comparative phylogenetic analysis revealed that the subgroups PoptrARF2, 6, 9 and 16 and PoptrIAA3, 16, 27 and 29 have differentially expanded in Populus relative to Arabidopsis. Activator ARFs were found to be two fold-overrepresented in the Populus genome. PoptrIAA and PoptrARF gene families appear to have expanded due to high segmental and low tandem duplication events. Furthermore, expression studies showed that genes in the expanded PoptrIAA3 subgroup display differential expression. The gene-family analysis reported here will be useful in conducting future functional genomics studies to understand how the molecular roles of these large gene families translate into a diversity of biologically meaningful auxin effects.
