In-Silico Identification and Characterization of Universal Stress Protein (USP) Gene Family in Triticum aestivum

Abstract Climate has changed drastically over the last decade. It is crucial to understand the needs of the plants and their adaptive mechanism that help them survive during adverse environmental conditions. Abiotic stressors mainly salt concentration, osmotic stress, heat stress, drought, flooding, etc. affect plants significantly. In this research work, we identified and characterized wheat's Universal Stress Protein (USP) gene family. In-silico approaches such as identification, gene ontologies, chromosomal mapping, circos, and synteny analysis were used to analyze the reported sequences. The study revealed that the domain architecture plays the most significant role in this family's multi-functional features, which is present in all plants. Moreover, the syntenic relationship revealed the conservancy among the monocot genomes. The role of USP in host cells was explored through studies/tools such as subcellular localization and gene ontologies The presence of several regulatory elements also gave insight into stress-specific modulation and regulation. Furthermore, protein modeling of the TaUSP genes revealed the presence of binding pockets with functionally important amino acids This work led us to report a total of 107 protein sequences on the ABD genome grouped into 34 TaUSP genes. Further instigations such as expression profiling might help verify these genes' stress-specific transcriptional modulation. Hence, this work would be quite useful in developing economically stress-resilient varieties.