Abstract

Autophagy is an important degradation pathway that maintains cellular homeostasis in living organisms and plays a key role in plant fitness and immunity. To date, more than 30 autophagy-related genes (ATGs) have been identified in model plants such as Arabidopsis. However, autophagy in Chinese cabbage, the largest cultivated vegetable crop in China, has scarcely been studied. We identified 64 Chinese cabbage autophagy-associated genes, namedBrATGs, at the genome-wide level. The majority of theBrATGswere highly conserved over a long evolutionary period, and the expression patterns indicated thatBrATGswere most highly expressed in the healing tissues and flowers. Furthermore,BrATGsresponded to the stresses of the heavy metal Cd, drought, salt, and low and high temperatures to varying degrees. Among them,BrATG8c/8jwas specifically induced in response to drastic temperature changes;BrATG4cwas upregulated only in response to drought and salt stress; andBrATG8f/10/VTI12Cwas highly expressed only in response to Cd stress. This work will advance the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the abiotic stress response in Chinese cabbage.Keywords:autophagy;genome-wide analysis;abiotic stress response;Chinese cabbage