Genomic Landscape of ABC Transporters in Maize (Zea mays L.)

ABC transporters are proteins that play important role in various cellular activities, which broadly include nutrient uptake and secretion of toxic products into the surrounding medium. Plant ABC transporters have been associated with such important traits as tolerance to diseases, insects and heavy metals, fiber development, light signaling etc. ABC transporters have been well described in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. However, very little is known about the classes of these proteins in major crops, including maize. In this study, we mined internally validated maize SNP collection for the sequences that would putatively encode ABC transporters. Our objectives were to investigate the distribution of these genes in maize genome, identify their classes and detect gene-based SNP assays associated with ABC transporters.