plants Article Evolutionary Divergence and Biased Expression of NAC Transcription Factors in Hexaploid Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Jianhui Ma 1,†, Meng Yuan 1,†, Bo Sun 1, Daijing Zhang 1, Jie Zhang 2,3, Chunxi Li 1, Yun Shao 1, Wei Liu 2,* and Lina Jiang 1,* 1 College of Life Science, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang 453007, China;
[email protected] (J.M.);
[email protected] (M.Y.);
[email protected] (B.S.);
[email protected] (D.Z.);
[email protected] (C.L.);
[email protected] (Y.S.) 2 Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Grain Crops, Agronomy College, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China;
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[email protected] (L.J.) † These authors contributed equally to this work. Abstract: The NAC genes, a large plant-specific family of transcription factors, regulate a wide range of pathways involved in development and response to biotic and abiotic stress. In this study, the NAC transcription factors were identified in 27 green plants, and the results showed that NAC transcription factors in plants undergo an appearance stage from water to land and a number expansion stage from gymnosperm to angiosperm. Investigating the evolutionary process of the NAC transcription factors from diploid species to hexaploid wheat revealed that tandem replications during the polyploidiza- Citation: Ma, J.; Yuan, M.; Sun, B.; tion process is an important event for increasing the number of NAC transcription factors in wheat. Zhang, D.; Zhang, J.; Li, C.; Shao, Y.; Then, the molecular characteristics, phylogenetic relationships, and expression patterns of 462 NAC Liu, W.; Jiang, L.