title: Evolution of the defensin-like gene family in grass genomes.
abstract: Plant defensins are small, diverse, cysteine-rich peptides, belonging to a group of pathogenesis-related defense mechanism proteins, which can provide a barrier against a broad range of pathogens. In this study, 51 defensin-like (DEFL) genes in Gramineae, including brachypodium, rice, maize and sorghum were identified based on bioinformatics methods. Using the synteny analysis method, we found that 21 DEFL genes formed 30 pairs of duplicated blocks that have undergone large-scale duplication events, mostly occurring between species. In particular, some chromosomal regions are highly conserved in the four grasses. Using mean Ks values, we estimated the approximate time of divergence for each pair of duplicated regions and found that these regions generally diverged more than 40 million years ago (Mya). Selection pressure analysis showed that the DEFL gene family is subjected to purifying selection. However, sliding window analysis detected partial reg ions of duplicated genes under positive selection. The evolutionary patterns within DEFL gene families among grasses can be used to explore the subsequent functional divergence of duplicated genes and to further analyse the antimicrobial effects of defensins during plant development.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Crop Biology of Anhui Province, School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei 230036, People's Republic of China;qingmad@163.com.
authors.forename: Jiandong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xiaolei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Haiyang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Qing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Ma
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D023082:Defensins / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D018745:Genome, Plant; D010802:Phylogeny; D006109:Poaceae / Q000235:genetics*; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
chemical_list: D023082:Defensins