*Article DsDBF1***, a Type A-5 DREB Gene, Identified and Characterized in the Moss** *Dicranum scoparium*

**Alfred O. Onele †, Anastasia B. Mazina †, Ilya Y. Leksin and Farida V. Minibayeva \***


† These authors contributed equally to this work.

**Abstract:** Plant dehydration-responsive element binding (DREB) transcription factors (TFs) play important roles during stress tolerance by regulating the expression of numerous genes involved in stresses. DREB TFs have been extensively studied in a variety of angiosperms and bryophytes. To date, no information on the identification and characterization of DREB TFs in *Dicranum scoparium* has been reported. In this study, a new *DBF1* gene from *D. scoparium* was identified by cloning and sequencing. Analysis of the conserved domain and physicochemical properties revealed that DsDBF1 protein has a classic AP2 domain encoding a 238 amino acid polypeptide with a molecular mass of 26 kDa and a pI of 5.98. Subcellular prediction suggested that DsDBF1 is a nuclear and cytoplasmic protein. Phylogenetic analysis showed that DsDBF1 belongs to group A-5 DREBs. Expression analysis by reverse transcription quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) revealed that *DsDBF1* was significantly upregulated in response to abiotic stresses such as desiccation/rehydration, exposure to paraquat, CdCl2, high and freezing temperatures. Taken together, our data suggest that *DsDBF1* could be a promising gene candidate to improve stress tolerance in crop plants, and the characterization of TFs of a stress tolerant moss such as *D. scoparium* provides a better understanding of plant adaptation mechanisms.

**Keywords:** abiotic stress; dehydration-responsive element binding (DREB) transcription factors; gene expression; mosses; stress tolerance
