Isolation, structure analysis and expression characterization of the Hexokinase gene family in .

Unlabelled: Hexokinases (HXK) not only facilitate carbohydrate metabolism but also play important roles in sugar sensing in higher plants. gene families have been extensively discussed in many plant species; however, comprehensive information regarding in sorghum remains unclear. To address this gap, we identified 7 putative sorghum ( to ), and the features of their conserved domains, gene structure, evolutionary tree, and cis-acting elements were systematically characterized to reveal the evolutionary conservation between different plant species. Based on expression profiling, we found that different expression patterns of were associated with different physiological processes, including abiotic stresses. Further qRT-PCR verification under salt and sucrose treatment confirmed that , , and may play very important roles under high osmotic pressure. Notably, SbHXKs are predominantly localized in the cytoplasm, in contrast to some rice and HXKs, which are localized in chloroplasts or mitochondria, suggesting divergent roles for SbHXKs. In summary, our study provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the HXK gene family and offers fundamental insights of in sorghum.

Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13205-024-04190-5.