of specific subfamilies. Interestingly, we found that tandem duplications accounted for the generation of 58.3% of the RLK-Pelle_ RLCK-Os subfamily. Similarly, tandem duplications seem to have contributed to the generation of about 52.2% and 46.2% of the RLK-Pelle_WAK and RLK-Pelle_RKF3 gene subfamily members, respectively. Also, RLK-Pelle_ DLSV and RLK-Pelle_LRR-XI-1 had many genes generated through tandem duplications. Previous reports have indicated that PKs expanded via tandem buy PBTZ 169 duplication tend to function in biotic stress responses. Therefore, we Fig. 3. Chromosome location and collinearity of soybean PK genes. Chromosomal locations of soybean PKs. The coloured boxes denote different groups of the soybean PK family. Collinearity events among all duplicated PKs in the soybean genome. The bars denote collinearity events contributed by 13-Mya whole-genome-wide duplication and by 59-Mya WGD and by other WGD events. The collinearity events contributed by the 13-Mya and 59-Mya whole-genome-wide duplication events. Contribution of the 13 and 59 Mya duplication events to the expansion of soybean PKs. The Ks values of collinearity events for all syntenically duplicated PKs were calculated the MCScanX program. The Ks values of 0.060.39 were used to differentiate the events contributed by the 13-Mya WGD from those contributed by the 59-Mya WGD events. used soybean Gene Ontology categorization to examine the functional bias of the 229 tandemly arrayed genes. The most abundant groups corresponded to proteins with functions associated with biotic stress responses, development, and abiotic stress responses . Fig. 4. Chromosomal locations of the 229 tandemly arrayed soybean PK genes. The 229 tandemly arranged PK genes were grouped in 73 clusters distributed unevenly among the 20 soybean chromosomes. Gene IDs and PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19811292 the corresponding subfamily names are indicated. Subfamilies are colour coded and the numbers in the left bar denote chromosomal locations of clusters. Subcellular localization of PKs PKs, as one of the main components of signal transduction pathways, are generally involved in perception and transmission of extracellular signals to the nucleus, which results in activation or repression of a specific set of genes involved in a particular cellular process. With the exception of receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases, which are known to localize to the cytoplasm, RLKs are transmembrane proteins containing extracellular receptor domains and intracellular kinase domains. However, the cellular localizations of the PKs belonging to other groups are largely unknown. Thus, the subcellular localization of these proteins was predicted using WoLF PSORT software, CELLO, and NucPred. The analysis provided suggestions for extracellular and cytoplasmic as well as nuclear localizations. Interestingly, several subfamilies included members that were predicted to localize to various cellular compartments, suggesting that gene subfamily members might have experienced subfunctionalization or neofunctionalization. In contrast, members belonging to 11 PK subfamilies were predicted to have the same cellular localization. One striking finding was that 312 proteins were predicted as nucleus-localized kinases. This number is surprisingly high because, unlike animals, plant systems contain a very limited number of exclusively nucleus-localized PKs. Therefore, we tested the subcellular localization of six predicted nucleuslocalized PKs in planta using onion epidermal cells.