Positive selection and functional divergence of farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase genes in plants

BMC Molecular Biology

Research Article

Jieying Qian¹  Yaosheng Wu¹  Naixia Chao¹  Chengtong Ma¹  Jian Sun¹  Qicong Chen¹  Yong Liu² 

[1] Key Laboratory of Biological Molecular Medicine Research of Guangxi Higher Education, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China;Schools of Pharmacy, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China;

关键词: Biological evolution;    Farnesyl pyrophosphate synthase;    Positive selection;    Terpenoid biosynthesis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12867-017-0081-4

 received in 2016-12-02, accepted in 2017-01-17,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFarnesyl pyrophosphate synthase (FPS) belongs to the short-chain prenyltransferase family, and it performs a conserved and essential role in the terpenoid biosynthesis pathway. However, its classification, evolutionary history, and the forces driving the evolution of FPS genes in plants remain poorly understood.ResultsPhylogeny and positive selection analysis was used to identify the evolutionary forces that led to the functional divergence of FPS in plants, and recombinant detection was undertaken using the Genetic Algorithm for Recombination Detection (GARD) method. The dataset included 68 FPS variation pattern sequences (2 gymnosperms, 10 monocotyledons, 54 dicotyledons, and 2 outgroups). This study revealed that the FPS gene was under positive selection in plants. No recombinant within the FPS gene was found. Therefore, it was inferred that the positive selection of FPS had not been influenced by a recombinant episode. The positively selected sites were mainly located in the catalytic center and functional areas, which indicated that the 98S and 234D were important positively selected sites for plant FPS in the terpenoid biosynthesis pathway. They were located in the FPS conserved domain of the catalytic site. We inferred that the diversification of FPS genes was associated with functional divergence and could be driven by positive selection.ConclusionsIt was clear that protein sequence evolution via positive selection was able to drive adaptive diversification in plant FPS proteins. This study provides information on the classification and positive selection of plant FPS genes, and the results could be useful for further research on the regulation of triterpenoid biosynthesis.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2017