partial functional conservation of irx10 homologs in physcomitrella patens and arabidopsis thaliana indicates an evolutionary step contributing to vascular formation in land plants部分功能守恒irx10同系物在physcomitrella金属盘和拟南芥表明进化步骤导致血管形成陆地植物.pdfVIP

Hörnblad et al. BMC Plant Biology 2013, 13:3 /1471-2229/13/3 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Partial functional conservation of IRX10 homologs in physcomitrella patens and Arabidopsis thaliana indicates an evolutionary step contributing to vascular formation in land plants 1 2 2 1,3* Emma Hörnblad , Mikael Ulfstedt , Hans Ronne and Alan Marchant Abstract Background: Plant cell walls are complex multicomponent structures that have evolved to fulfil an essential function in providing strength and protection to cells. Hemicelluloses constitute a key component of the cell wall and recently a number of the genes thought to encode the enzymes required for its synthesis have been identified in Arabidopsis. The acquisition of hemicellulose synthesis capability is hypothesised to have been an important step in the evolution of higher plants. Results: Analysis of the Physcomitrella patens genome has revealed the presence of homologs for all of the Arabidopsis glycosyltransferases including IRX9, IRX10 and IRX14 required for the synthesis of the glucuronoxylan backbone. The Physcomitrella IRX10 homolog is expressed in a variety of moss tissues which were newly formed or undergoing expansion. There is a high degree of sequence conservation between the Physcomitrella IRX10 and Arabidopsis IRX10 and IRX10-L. Despite this sequence similarity, the Physcomitrella IRX10 gene is only able to partially rescue the Arabidopsis irx10 irx10-L double mutant indicating that there has been a neo- or sub-functionalisation during the evolution of higher plants. Analysis of the monosaccharide composition of stems from the partially rescued Arabidopsis plants does not show any significant change in xylose content compared to the irx10 irx10-L dou