title: Divergent Evolutionary Pattern of Sugar Transporter Genes is Associated with the Difference in Sugar Accumulation between Grasses and Eudicots.
abstract: Sugars play a variety of roles in plants, and their accumulation in seeds and/or surrounding pericarp tissues is distinctly different between grasses and eudicots. However, little is known about the evolutionary pattern of genes involved in sugar accumulation in these two major groups of flowering plants. Here, we compared evolutionary rates, gene duplication, and selective patterns of genes involved in sugar metabolism and transport between grasses and eudicots using six grass species and seven eudicot species as materials. Overall, sugar transporter genes exhibit divergent evolutionary patterns, whereas, sugar metabolism genes showing similar evolutionary pattern between monocots and eudicots. Sugar transporter genes have higher frequencies of recent duplication in eudicots than in grasses and their patterns of evolutionary rate are different. Evidence for divergent selection of these two groups of flowering plants is also observed in sugar transporter genes, wherein, these genes have undergone positive selection in eudicots, but not in grasses. Taken together, these findings suggest that sugar transporter genes rather than sugar metabolism genes play important roles in sugar accumulation in plants, and that divergent evolutionary patterns of sugar transporter genes are associated with the difference of sugar accumulation in storage tissues of grasses and eudicots.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.|Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.|Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Baiquan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.|Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquanlu, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Owiti
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA 02184, USA.
authors.forename: Schuyler S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Korban
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Plant Germplasm Enhancement and Specialty Agriculture, Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.|Sino-African Joint Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
authors.forename: Yuepeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020440:Gene Duplication / Q000235:genetics; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D019684:Magnoliopsida / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development; D005810:Multigene Family; D010802:Phylogeny; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D006109:Poaceae / Q000235:genetics; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D000073893:Sugars / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins; D000073893:Sugars