Chitinases are a kind of hydrolases using chitin as a crucial substrate and play a vital role in the plant defense mechanism against fungal pathogens. Foxtail millet has more abiotic stress tolerance, despite it, these are more prone to blast disease which is caused by a fungal pathogen Magnaporthe grisea. In the present investigation, the identification and characterization of chitinase gene family in foxtail millet (Setaria italica) is done by using different computational tools. Other studies such as sequence alignment, motif and domains identification, gene ontology expression, and structural analysis of these genes were performed. Forty chitinase genes were identified and classified into GH-18 and GH-19 sub-families under the glycosyl hydrolase family. Among these, class-III genes seem to be quantitatively high. Many of these genes take part actively in defense mechanism under lowtemperature, drought, and osmotic stress conditions with the help of regulatory elements such as TC-rich repeats, MYB binding site, stress responsive elements, low temperature induced, etc., that are present in promoter site. Also, the average number of genes is expressed in a moderate level in response to stress and invasion of pathogens that is observed in expression analysis. This study can help understand the functions of chitinases in S. italica. This may be helpful in future study to generating blast-resistant foxtail millet genotypes by enhancing chitinase production.
Key words: Foxtail millet, Chitinases, Magnaporthe grisea, defence response, Glycosyl hydrolase family.
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