Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 J Plant Res DOI 10.1007/s10265-017-0948-y REGULAR PAPER Genome-wide analysis identifes chickpea (Cicer arietinum) heat stress transcription factors (Hsfs) responsive to heat stress at the pod development stage Parameswaran Chidambaranathan 1,2  · Prasanth Tej Kumar Jagannadham 1,2  · Viswanathan Satheesh 1,2  · Deshika Kohli 1  · Santosh Halasabala Basavarajappa 3  · Bharadwaj Chellapilla 3  · Jitendra Kumar 3  · Pradeep Kumar Jain 1,2  · R. Srinivasan 1,2,4   Received: 6 January 2016 / Accepted: 4 April 2017 © The Botanical Society of Japan and Springer Japan 2017 salinity stresses, respectively. Q-PCR expression analysis of Hsfs under heat stress at pod development and at 15 days old seedling stage showed that CarHsfA2, A6, and B2 were signifcantly upregulated in both the stages of crop growth and other four Hsfs (CarHsfA2, A6a, A6c, B2a) showed early transcriptional upregulation for heat stress at seedling stage of chickpea. These subclasses of Hsfs identifed in this study can be further evaluated as candidate genes in the characterization of heat stress response in chickpea. Keywords DNA binding domain · Phylogeny · Duplication of Hsfs · Digital expression · Pod development stage · Heat stress-inducible gene expression · Heat stress responsive element (HSE) · ABA-responsive elements (ABRE) Abstract The heat stress transcription factors (Hsfs) play a prominent role in thermotolerance and eliciting the heat stress response in plants. Identifcation and expression anal- ysis of Hsfs gene family members in chickpea would pro- vide valuable information on heat stress responsive Hsfs. A genome-wide analysis of Hsfs gene family resulted in the identifcation of 22 Hsf genes in chickpea in both desi and kabuli genome. Phylogenetic analysis distinctly separated 12 A, 9 B, and 1 C class Hsfs, respectively. An analysis of cis-regulatory elements in the upstream region of the genes identifed many stress responsive elements such as heat stress elements (HSE), abscisic acid responsive ele- ment (ABRE) etc. In silico expression analysis showed nine and three Hsfs were also expressed in drought and Prasanth Tej Kumar Jagannadham and Viswanathan Satheesh contributed equally to the work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10265-017-0948-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * R. Srinivasan srinivasan53@gmail.com Parameswaran Chidambaranathan agriparames07@gmail.com Prasanth Tej Kumar Jagannadham jptejj@gmail.com Viswanathan Satheesh viswanathan.satheesh@gmail.com Deshika Kohli deshika15@gmail.com Santosh Halasabala Basavarajappa santoshgpb@gmail.com Bharadwaj Chellapilla chbharadwaj@yahoo.co.in Jitendra Kumar jk_gen@iari.res.in Pradeep Kumar Jain jainpmb@gmail.com 1 National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, India 2 Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India 3 Division of Genetics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India 4 Emeritus Scientist, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, NRC Plant Biotechnology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India