Abstract：VQ protein family is a plant-specific transcription regulation cofactor, which plays an important role in regulation of plant growth, development and responses to various external environment stresses and it is named after the invariant valine-glutamine (VQ) dipeptide. SIB1 (sigma factor binding protein 1) was the first VQ protein that found from Arabidopsis thaliana in 2002. Subsequently, VQ multi-gene families had been identified in Arabidopsis thaliana, rice (Oryza sativa), soybean (Glycine max), grape (Vitis vinifera), Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa), maize (Zea mays) and so on. The analyses of protein characteristic show VQ proteins contain a highly conserved VQ domain ‘FxxxVQxLTG’ (where x is any residue), however, the amino acid sequences of other regions have diversity. In addition, basing on the difference of L and G residues, VQ domains of different plant VQ proteins could further have been divided into different types. For example, there are six (LTG, LTS, LTD, FTG, VTG and YTG) and four (LTG, VTG, FTG and ITG) types of VQ proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana and rice, respectively. Further results indicate more than 80% VQ proteins contain 300 amino acids or less and most proteins are localized in the nucleus. The analyses of gene structure display more than 80% VQ genes have no intron. Furthermore, VQ genes are dispersedly distributed on all chromosomes of plants except for several chromosomes of soybean and grape. The researches of VQ gene functions show that not only they participate in regulating the growth and development of seed, hypocotyl, flower and leaf, but also play an important role in response to the stresses of drought, salt, temperature and pathogen. For example, in Arabidopsis VQ genes, over-expression of VQ8, VQ10, VQ17, VQ18 and VQ22 inhibited plant growth; vq14 mutant cause the production of small seeds; over-expression of VQ29 influence the length of hypocotyls and flowering time; VQ9 and VQ15 impact plant response to high salt and osmotic stresses and VQ4, VQ12, VQ16, VQ21, VQ22, VQ23 and VQ29 affect plant resistant to pathogen infection. The researches of regulation mechanisms indicate that VQ proteins widely take part in regulating plant various physiological and biochemical process through interacting with other proteins, such as interacting with WRKY transcription factor to affect plant seed size and resistance to salt injury and pathogen infection, such as VQ14-WRKY10, VQ9-WRKY8, VQ22-WRKY28/51 and VQ23-WRKY33; forming ternary complex with MAPK and WRKY to provide specific, such as VQ21-MPK4-WRKY33, accurate and effective regulation mechanism for plant response to biotic stress, VQ29 interacting with phytochrome binding factor to impact plant photomorphogenesis, and also forming homologous or heterologous dimer among these VQ proteins. In addition, the researches of VQ domain discover that it playing an important role in biological functions of VQ gene family, and it also influences cellular localization and protein interaction, for example, VQ domain of VQ14 influence the production of small seeds and protein interaction, VQ domain of VQ9 affect subcellular localization and protein interaction. Here, this review focused on VQ protein, genetic characteristics, biological function and regulation mechanisms, which was aimed at providing us with some hints and inspiration for further study of plant VQ proteins.
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