| Summary: | Members of the <i>IQM</i> (IQ-Motif Containing) gene family are involved in plant growth and developmental processes, biotic and abiotic stress response. To systematically analyze the <i>IQM</i> gene family and their expression profiles under diverse biotic and abiotic stresses, we identified 8 <i>IQM</i> genes in the rice genome. In the current study, the whole genome identification and characterization of <i>OsIQMs</i>, including the gene and protein structure, genome localization, phylogenetic relationship, gene expression and yeast two-hybrid were performed. Eight <i>IQM</i> genes were classified into three subfamilies (I–III) according to the phylogenetic analysis. Gene structure and protein motif analyses showed that these <i>IQM</i> genes are relatively conserved within each subfamily of rice. The 8 <i>OsIQM</i> genes are distributed on seven out of the twelve chromosomes, with three <i>IQM</i> gene pairs involved in segmental duplication events. The evolutionary patterns analysis revealed that the <i>IQM</i> genes underwent a large-scale event within the last 20 to 9 million years. In addition, quantitative real-time PCR analysis of eight <i>OsIQMs</i> genes displayed different expression patterns at different developmental stages and in different tissues as well as showed that most <i>IQM</i> genes were responsive to PEG, NaCl, jasmonic acid (JA), abscisic acid (ABA) treatment, suggesting their crucial roles in biotic, and abiotic stress response. Additionally, a yeast two-hybrid assay showed that OsIQMs can interact with OsCaMs, and the IQ motif of OsIQMs is required for OsIQMs to combine with OsCaMs. Our results will be valuable to further characterize the important biological functions of rice <i>IQM</i> genes.
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