Phylogenetic tree of MAPKKK protein sequences from Arabidopsis and Vitis vinifera. The amino acid sequences of all Arabidopsis MAPKKK proteins and those of Vitis vinifera were aligned using the MUSCLE program and subjected to phylogenetic analysis by the distance with neighborjoining method using MEGA5 programme. MAPKKK forms the largest group of MAPK cascades with 62 members classified into three subfamilies, MEKK, Raf, and ZIK containing 21, 29, and 12 genes, recpectively in Vitis genome. Accession numbers for Arabidopsis sequences are AtMEKK1 (At1g09000), AtMEKK2 (At1g54960), AtMEKK3 (At1g53570), AtMEKK4 (At1g63700), AtMEKK5 (At5g66850), AtMEKK6 (At3g07980), AtMEKK7 (At3g13530), AtMEKK8 (At4g08500), AtMEKK9 (At4g08480), AtMEKK10 (At4g08470), AtMEKK11 (At4g12020), AtMEKK12 (At3g06030), AtMEKK13 (At1g07150), AtMEKK14 (At2g30040), AtMEKK15 (At5g55090), AtMEKK16 (At4g26890), AtMEKK17 (At2g32510), AtMEKK18 (At1g05100), AtMEKK19 (At5g67080), AtMEKK20 (At3g50310), AtMEKK21 (At4g36950), AtRAF1 (At5g03730), AtRAF2 (At1g08720), AtRAF3 (At5g11850), AtRAF4 (At1g18160), AtRAF5 (At1g73660), AtRAF6 (At4g24480), AtRAF7 (At3g06620), AtRAF8 (At3g06630), AtRAF9 (At3g06640), AtRAF10 (At5g49470), AtRAF11 (At1g67890), AtRAF12 (At4g23050), AtRAF13 (At2g31010), AtRAF14 (At2g42630), AtRAF15 (At3g58640), AtRAF16 (At1g04700), AtRAF17 (At1g14000), AtRAF18 (At1g16270), AtRAF19 (At1g62400), AtRAF20 (At1g79570), AtRAF21 (At2g17700), AtRAF22 (At2g24360), AtRAF23 (At2g31800), AtRAF24 (At2g35050), AtRAF25 (At2g43850), AtRAF26 (At4g14780), AtRAF27 (At4g18950), AtRAF28 (At4g31170), AtRAF29 (At4g35780), AtRAF30 (At4g38470), AtRAF31 (At5g01850), AtRAF32 (At5g40540), AtRAF33 (At5g50000), AtRAF34 (At5g50180), AtRAF35 (At5g57610), AtRAF36 (At5g58950), AtRAF37 (At5g66710), AtRAF38 (At3g01490), AtRAF39 (At3g22750), AtRAF40 (At3g24720), AtRAF41 (At3g27560), AtRAF42 (At3g46920), AtRAF43 (At3g46930), AtRAF44 (At3g50720), AtRAF45 (At3g50730), AtRAF46 (At3g59830), AtRAF47 (At3g58760), AtRAF48 (At3g63260), AtZIK1 (At3g51630), AtZIK2 (At5g58350), AtZIK3 (At3g22420), AtZIK4 (At3g04910), AtZIK5 (At3g18750), AtZIK6 (At5g41990), AtZIK7 (At1g49160), AtZIK8 (At5g55560), AtZIK9 (At5g28080), AtZIK10 (At1g64630), AtZIK11 (At3g48260).