Abstract
Generation of reactive oxidation species in response to different types of stress is a general phenomenon observed in plants. It is considered to be a molecular signaling mechanism of plants to encounter adverse effects. Radical-induced cell death 1 (rcd1 or Atrcd1) gene of Arabidopsis thaliana is a stress responsive gene known to interact with several transcription factors during different types of stress. It is predicted to provide scaffold for mediating interactions between two proteins using its WWE and RST domains. It also has an inactive PARP catalytic domain forming the Similar like rcd1 (SRO) family of plant PARPs along with its homologs. In this study a new homolog from Brassica napus genome (Bnsro1) was identified. Analysis of Bnsro1 was done to predict function on computational basis by comparison with its homolog. Bnsro1 has similarities with Atrcd1 at sequence level and contains same globular domains. It is predicted to be catalytically active as it conserves the 16 amino acids required for NAD
binding pocket. Most of the motifs and sites harbored by AtRCD1 are also conserved in BnSRO1. Both translated proteins have intrinsically disordered regions but BnSRO1 is predicted to be more unstructured than AtRCD1. Therefore, the analysis done in this report predicts Bnsro1 as a new member of SRO family having a comparable structural and functional relationship to the Arabidopsis thaliana rcd1.