title: Isolation of the LFY/FLO homologue in Orchis italica and evolutionary analysis in some European orchids.
abstract: It has been suggested that the evolutionary analysis of floral development genes could explain the divergences between the rates of morphological and molecular evolution. The LEAFY (LFY) gene of Arabidopsis thaliana is one of the central regulatory genes in the control of flower development. We have identified the homologue of this gene (OrcLFY) in Orchis italica using 5'/3'RACE and primer walking, and compared the coding sequences of several orchid species. We analyzed nonsynonymous and synonymous substitution rates between the OrcLFY coding regions of 14 species, and performed a McDonald-Kreitman test on Orchis morio and Orchis laxiflora populations, showing that purifying selection is acting on this gene in these orchids. We have performed a phylogenetic analysis showing that OrcLFY is a new useful marker to reconstruct molecular phylogenies at low taxonomic levels.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Genetica, Biologia generale e molecolare, Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II", via Mezzocannone 8, 80134, Napoli, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Montieri
authors.forename: Luciano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gaudio
authors.forename: Serena
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aceto
mesh_terms: D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D035264:Flowers / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000235:genetics; D007558:Italy; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D029595:Orchidaceae / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant; D010940:Plant Proteins