Fukuda Tatsuya, Yokoyama Jun, Nakamura Toru, Song In-Ja, Ito Takuro, Ochiai Toshinori, Kanno Akira, Kameya Toshiaki, Maki Masayuki
Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan.
BMC Plant Biol. 2005 Apr 18;5:6. doi: 10.1186/1471-2229-5-6.
Nuclear genes determine the vast range of phenotypes that are responsible for the adaptive abilities of organisms in nature. Nevertheless, the evolutionary processes that generate the structures and functions of nuclear genes are only now be coming understood. The aim of our study is to isolate the alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) genes in two distantly related legumes, and use these sequences to examine the molecular evolutionary history of this nuclear gene.
We isolated the expressed Adh genes from two species of legumes, Sophora flavescens Ait. and Wisteria floribunda DC., by a RT-PCR based approach and found a new Adh locus in addition to homologues of the Adh genes found previously in legumes. To examine the evolution of these genes, we compared the species and gene trees and found gene duplication of the Adh loci in the legumes occurred as an ancient event.
This is the first report revealing that some legume species have at least two Adh gene loci belonging to separate clades. Phylogenetic analyses suggest that these genes resulted from relatively ancient duplication events.
核基因决定了生物在自然界中适应能力所依赖的广泛表型。然而，产生核基因结构和功能的进化过程直到现在才开始被理解。我们研究的目的是分离两种远缘豆科植物中的乙醇脱氢酶（Adh）基因，并利用这些序列来研究该核基因的分子进化历史。
我们通过基于逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）的方法，从两种豆科植物苦参（Sophora flavescens Ait.）和紫藤（Wisteria floribunda DC.）中分离出了表达的Adh基因，并且除了先前在豆科植物中发现的Adh基因同源物外，还发现了一个新的Adh基因座。为了研究这些基因的进化，我们比较了物种树和基因树，发现豆科植物中Adh基因座的基因复制是一个古老的事件。
这是第一份揭示某些豆科植物至少有两个属于不同分支的Adh基因座的报告。系统发育分析表明，这些基因源于相对古老的复制事件。
