SINA E3 ligase family. A, Alignment of the M. truncatula SINA protein family and Arabidopsis SINAT5. The RING finger motif and the SINA domain are marked by asterisks and dollar signs, respectively. Conserved Cys and His residues in the RING (*) and Zn finger (+) motifs are marked on top of the sequence. MtSINA1 (TC102374, EU189945); MtSINA2 (TC102369, EU189946); MtSINA3 (TC109024, EU189947); MtSINA4 (TC102612, EU189948); MtSINA5 (TC104350, EU189949); and MtSINA6 (TC109632, EU189950). B, Phylogram of M. truncatula (Mt), Arabidopsis (At), rice (Os), and poplar (Pt) conserved SINA nucleotide sequence regions guided by amino acid alignment. The human Siah1 sequence was used to root the tree. Asterisks indicate the SINA genes encoding a protein with a shorter C-terminal SINA domain. C, Transcript level of MtSINA4 in roots (NI) and in developing nodules at 6 (6dpi), 9 (9dpi), 16 (16dpi), and 40 (40dpi) dpi as measured by qRT-PCR.