Bioinformatics analysis for Piezo in rice

The perception of mechanical force is a universal process in biological growth and development. Mechanosensitive ion channels play an important role in this process. Piezo, a member of mechanosensitive ion channels, has extensively studied in animals as a Ca2+ channel located on the plasma membrane. However, the function of Piezo homologs in plants remains unclear. In Arabidopsis thaliana and Physcomitrium patens, Piezo protein has been proved to be located on the plasma membrane and vacuole membrane, and participates in regulating root and vacuole morphology, respectively. Here using evolution analysis, promoter analysis, conserved domain alignment and homology modeling of rice Piezo protein, we find that only one Piezo ortholog was retained in rice genome. The core domains of plant Piezo responsible for Ca2+ transduction were highly conserved, whilst exhibit low similarity with that of animals. The promoter region contains several cis-acting elements that were predicated to be involved in abscisic acid and gibberellin signaling pathway. Hence, the bioinformatics analysis of OsPiezo in this study has provided a reference for further research on the function of OsPiezo in rice.