Abstract
C4 photosynthesis is nature's response to CO2 limitations, and evolved recurrently in several groups of plants. To identify genes related to C4 photosynthesis, Huang et al. looked for evidence of past episodes of adaptive evolution in the genomes of C4 grasses. They identified a large number of candidate genes that evolved under divergent selection, indicating that, besides alterations to expression patterns, the history of C4 involved strong selection on protein-coding sequences.
Highlights
The C4 syndrome relies on a series of anatomical and biochemical adaptations that function together to concentrate CO2 in some parts of the leaf (Hatch, 1987)
Because each amino acid can be encoded by different nucleotide triplets, some nucleotide changes do not affect the protein
Huang et al looked for such traces of past episodes of adaptive evolution linked to C4 photosynthesis by comparing the genomes of C4 and nonC4 grasses (Box 1)
Summary
The C4 syndrome relies on a series of anatomical and biochemical adaptations that function together to concentrate CO2 in some parts of the leaf (Hatch, 1987). The significance of these changes is another problem, but past evolutionary pressures left specific footprints on the small fraction of genomes that correspond to protein-coding genes. When a change in the catalytic properties of the encoded enzyme benefits the organism, the rate of fixation of non-synonymous substitutions will increase, leading to an observed dN/dS that can exceed one, at least for some parts of a gene.
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