Analysis of the WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX gene family in the conifer picea abiesreveals extensive conservation as well as dynamic patterns

BMC Plant Biology

Research Article

Sara von Arnold¹  Joel J Sohlberg¹  Tianqing Zhu¹  Harald Hedman¹ 

[1] Department of Plant Biology and Forest Genetics, Uppsala BioCenter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology, 7080, 75007, Uppsala, SE, Sweden;

关键词: Picea abies;    Somatic embryogenesis;    WOX;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2229-13-89

 received in 2012-09-19, accepted in 2013-06-03,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMembers of the WUSCHEL-RELATED HOMEOBOX (WOX) gene family have important functions during all stages of plant development and have been implicated in the development of morphological novelties during evolution. Most studies have examined the function of these genes in angiosperms and very little is known from other plant species.ResultsIn this study we examine the presence and expression of WOX genes in the conifer Picea abies. We have cloned 11 WOX genes from both mRNA and genomic DNA and examined their phylogenetic relationship to WOX genes from other species as well as their expression during somatic embryogenesis and in adult tissues.ConclusionsOur study shows that all major radiations within the WOX gene family took place before the angiosperm-gymnosperm split and that there has been a recent expansion within the intermediate clade in the Pinaceae family. Furthermore, we show that the genes from the intermediate clade are preferentially expressed during embryo development in Picea abies. Our data also indicates that there are clear orthologs of both WUS and WOX5 present in the P. abies genome.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Hedman et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.