Differential evolution of members of the rhomboid gene family with conservative and divergent patterns. Issue 1 (21st November 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Qi; Zhang, Ning; Zhang, Liangsheng; Ma, Hong
• Is Part Of: New phytologist. Volume 206:Issue 1(2015)
• Page Start: 368
• Page End: 380
• Publication Date: 2014-11-21
• Subjects: Botany -- Periodicals; 580
• DOI: 10.1111/nph.13174
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0028-646X

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="nph13174-abs-0001"> <title>Summary</title> <p> <list id="nph13174-list-0001" list-type="bullet"> <list-item> <p>Rhomboid proteins are intramembrane serine proteases that are involved in a plethora of biological functions, but the evolutionary history of the <italic>rhomboid</italic> gene family is not clear.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p>We performed a comprehensive molecular evolutionary analysis of the <italic>rhomboid</italic> gene family and also investigated the organization and sequence features of plant rhomboids in different subfamilies.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p>Our results showed that eukaryotic rhomboids could be divided into five subfamilies (<italic>RhoA</italic>–<italic>RhoD</italic> and <italic>PARL</italic>). Most orthology groups appeared to be conserved only as single or low‐copy genes in all lineages in <italic>RhoB</italic>–<italic>RhoD</italic> and <italic>PARL</italic>, whereas <italic>RhoA</italic> genes underwent several duplication events, resulting in multiple gene copies. These duplication events were due to whole genome duplications in plants and animals and the duplicates might have experienced functional divergence. We also identified a novel group of plant rhomboid (<italic>RhoB1</italic>) that might have lost their enzymatic activity; their existence suggests that they might have evolved new mechanisms.</p> </list-item> <list-item> <p>Plant and animal rhomboids have similar evolutionary patterns. In addition, there are mutations affecting key active sites in <italic>RBL8</italic>, <italic> RBL9</italic> and one of the Brassicaceae <italic>PARL</italic> duplicates. This study delineates a possible evolutionary scheme for intramembrane proteins and illustrates distinct fates and a mechanism of evolution of gene duplicates.</p> </list-item> </list> </p> </abstract>