BMC Genomics BioMed Central Research article Open Access Phylogenetic and comparative gene expression analysis of barley (Hordeum vulgare) WRKY transcription factor family reveals putatively retained functions between monocots and dicots Elke Mangelsen1, Joachim Kilian2, Kenneth W Berendzen2, Üner H Kolukisaoglu3, Klaus Harter2, Christer Jansson1,4 and Dierk Wanke*2 Address: 1Department of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P.O. Box 7080, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden, 2Center of Plant Molecular Biology (ZMBP), University of Tuebingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 1, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany, 3CELISCA (Center for Life Science Automation), Friedrich-Barnewitz-Strasse 8, D-18119 Rostock, Germany and 4Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Earth Science Division, 1 Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Email: Elke Mangelsen -
[email protected]; Joachim Kilian -
[email protected]; Kenneth W Berendzen -
[email protected]; Üner H Kolukisaoglu -
[email protected]; Klaus Harter -
[email protected]; Christer Jansson -
[email protected]; Dierk Wanke* -
[email protected] tuebingen.de * Corresponding author Published: 28 April 2008 Received: 20 October 2007 Accepted: 28 April 2008 BMC Genomics 2008, 9:194 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-9-194 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/9/194 © 2008 Mangelsen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: WRKY proteins belong to the WRKY-GCM1 superfamily of zinc finger transcription factors that have been subject to a large plant-specific diversification.