Evolution after Gene Duplication (Dittmar/Evolution After Gene Duplication) || Gene and Genome Duplications in Plants

✍ Scribed by Dittmar, Katharina; Liberles, David

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 681 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 0470593822
• DOI: 10.1002/9780470619902.ch15

✦ Synopsis

Many plants have large and complex genomes, with genome size varying 1000-fold (Bennett and Leitch, 2004). Although large genome size in conifers has been attributed to expansion of retrotransposons, the large size and complexity of most plant genomes appears to be due to gene duplication-through expansion of gene families [e.g., SKP1 , which shows extensive gene birth and death (Kong et al., 2004); MADS-box genes, which are more numerous in plants than in other eukaryotes (Becker and Theissen, 2003)] and whole-genome duplication (polyploidy; e.g., Vision et al., 2000). Current research is exploring the role of gene and genome duplication in genetic interactions, floral development, morphological diversification, speciation, and adaptation. These once disparate areas have recently been unified by the availability of genomic data and by conceptual and informatic developments that allow genomic methods to be applied to nonmodel plants. The result is a paradigm shift in our understanding of the importance and pervasiveness of gene and genome duplication.

Gene duplication has long been recognized as the ultimate source for evolutionary change (Ohno, 1970), and recent theoretical developments have clarified the possible fates of duplicate genes (Lynch and Conery, 2000). Both members of a duplicate gene pair may be maintained, retaining their original function, or they may diverge. Divergence may follow any of the following paths: retention of one copy and loss/silencing of the other, leading to a pseudogene; retention of the ancestral function by one copy