Identification of the Valine-Glutamine gene family in Chenopodium quinoa Willd and analysis of its expression pattern and subcellular localization under drought stress.

Background: Chenopodium quinoa Willd (Quinoa) is highly tolerant to drought, cold, and salt stress. Gene editing technology development, and research on quinoa's drought resistance have attracted much attention. The transcriptional cofactor VQ plays an important role in the drought response in plants, but its role in quinoa has not been reported.

Results: Bioinformatics identified 23 members of the quinoa VQ gene family, mainly located in the nucleus and unevenly distributed on 10 chromosomes. Gene structure and phylogenetic analysis indicated that the VQ genes were closely related and highly conserved, forming three subfamilies. The cis-acting elements of the promoter reveal its involvement in the response to light and hormonal stress. qRT-PCR analysis showed that all VQ genes were differentially expressed under drought stress, among which CqVQ13 was significantly up-regulated, and subcellular localization indicated that it was localized to the nucleus.

Conclusion: This study conducted a systematic bioinformatics analysis of the basic physicochemical properties and chromosome localization of 23 members of the CqVQ gene family. Combined with transcriptome gene expression profiling and qRT-PCR, we found that CqVQ13 was significantly up-regulated under drought stress and localized in the nucleus. This discovery provides an important candidate gene for drought response studies in quinoa and lays the foundation for further exploration of the molecular mechanisms of the VQ gene family in response to drought stress.