Genome-wide searches and molecular analyses highlight the unique evolutionary path of flavone synthase I (FNSI) in Apiaceae.

Flavone synthase is a key enzyme for flavone biosynthesis and is encoded by two gene families: flavone synthase I (FNSI) and flavone synthase II (FNSII). FNSII is widely distributed in plants, while FNSI has been reported in rice (Oryza sativa) and seven species of Apiaceae. FNSI has likely evolved from the duplication of flavanone 3β-hydroxylase (F3H). In this study, we used multiple bioinformatics tools to identify putative FNSI and F3H genes from 42 publicly available genome and transcriptome datasets. Results showed that rice FNSI does not share a common ancestral sequence with other known FNSI genes and that FNSI is absent from species outside of Apiaceae. Positive selection site identification analysis revealed that four sites within the FNSI tree branches of Apiaceae evolved under significant positive selection. The putative F3H genes identified in this study provide a valuable resource for further function analysis of flavone synthase.