Cold-related genes BcCOR15B and BcCOR15A have environment adapted expression pattern in non-heading Chinese cabbage

In this work, two cold-related (COR) genes, BcCOR15B and BcCOR15A, were isolated from non-heading Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. chinensis cv. Suzhouqing). Their open reading frames (ORFs) are 429 and 390 base pairs (bp) in length, which encode 142 and 129 amino acids (aa), respectively. The predicted amino acid sequences of BcCOR15B and BcCOR15A share the respective 99.30% and 95.56% highest homology with the amino acid sequences of the corresponding BrCOR15B and BrCOR15A in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa). Sequence and phylogenetic analysis showed that the relationship between BcCOR15 B/A and BrCOR15 B/A was relatively close. Structural analysis showed that the structure of BcCOR15 B/A proteins was both relatively stable and conservative. Subcellular localization indicated that BcCOR15B and BcCOR15A proteins were both localized on the chloroplast. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analysis showed that BcCOR15 B/A were both induced to express by cold and other abiotic stresses. Prokaryotic expression and Western blot analysis revealed that the two proteins were both hydrophilic. The identification and analysis of cold-related genes BcCOR15 B/A from non-heading Chinese cabbage might provide a reference for further study on agronomic traits of vegetable and crop plants in cold environments.