Abstract:With wolfberry (Lycium barbarum L.) as material, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) combined with RACE technology were used to clone a cDNA of WRKY from wolfberry, named as Lb WRKY3. (GenBank accession No.KX196192). Meanwhile, on the basis of bioinformatic analysis, we performed the subcellular localization assays and tissuespecific expression analysis. The results indicated that: (1) Lb WRKY3 has an open reading frame(ORF) of 1 068 bp, which encoded a protein of 356 amino acid residues. (2)Bioinformatic analysis indicated that Lb WRKY3 protein contains the one conserved WRKY motifs, the predictive secondary structure showed that Lb WRKY3 protein was made up of 15.82% alphahelix, 6.63% betaturn, 18.88% extended strand and 58.67% random coil. Lb WRKY3 protein showed the highest homology identity with WRKY protein from Chrysanthemum x morifolium and Artemisia annua. (3)Subcellular localization assays showed that the Lb WRKY3 protein was located in the nucleus. (4)Realtime PCR analysis indicated that Lb WRKY3 was expressed in high transcript level in roots, low levels in flower. The Lb WRKY3 gene expression could be detected during the whole period of fruit development. Interestingly, Lb WRKY3 gene showed a high transcription level in 35 days. The expression level in the pulp was higher than that in the seed and peel . Lb WRKY3 gene takes part in fruit development and sugar accumulation in wolfberry.