Abstract
Maize (Zea mays L.) holds significance importance in Pakistan in
addition to being the highest yielding cereal crop in the world. But its
yield has been severely affected due to the different environmental
constraints including heat stress. In order to meet the growing food
demand there is dire need to produce climate resilient varieties of
maize. For this purpose we need to exploit the biochemical and molecular
mechanisms involved in providing heat resistance to maize. In present
study four genes were selected which were reportedly involved in
response against heat stimulus, but were not structurally and
functionally characterized. Therefore in-silico approach was used in
order to investigate these hypothetical/candidate proteins. The
phylogenetic investigation was conducted to find the evolutionary
relationship. The 3D structures were elucidated in addition to the
secondary structure prediction. Conserved domains and their interactions
with other proteins were analyzed for the functional annotation. Our
results showed that the protein sequences of maize are showing constant
evolutionary change similar to their homologues. Predicted structures
and domains of HPs are involved in conferring heat tolerance to maize
crop. NP_001148903.1 is one of the HP; its interactions with other
proteins along with its predicted domains, suggests that it is involved
in stress response as most of its interacting partners are stress
responsive proteins. This theoretical overview of heat tolerance
proteins in maize will help researchers in understanding their predicted
structure and function which will aide them in designing the genetically
engineered varieties of heat resilient maize.