The compact Selaginella genome identifies changes in gene content associated with the evolution of vascular plants

By J. Banks, Tomoaki Nishiyama, M. Hasebe, J. Bowman, Michael Gribskov, Claude W. dePamphilis, Victor A. Albert, N. Aono, Tsuyoshi Aoyama, Barbara A. Ambrose and 93 more. Science, 2011

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The genome sequence of a lycophyte hints at ancient evolutionary transitions. Vascular plants appeared ~410 million years ago, then diverged into several lineages of which only two survive: the euphyllophytes (ferns and seed plants) and the lycophytes. We report here the genome sequence of the lycophyte Selaginella moellendorffii (Selaginella), the first nonseed vascular plant genome reported. By comparing gene content in evolutionarily diverse taxa, we found that the transition from a gametophyte- to a sporophyte-dominated life cycle required far fewer new genes than the transition from a nonseed vascular to a flowering plant, whereas secondary metabolic genes expanded extensively and in parallel in the lycophyte and angiosperm lineages. Selaginella differs in posttranscriptional gene regulation, including small RNA regulation of repetitive elements, an absence of the trans-acting small interfering RNA pathway, and extensive RNA editing of organellar genes.

Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/80994ad43806bd99027aeed84aa521f43c688077

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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

In Plant Science

Citations in the corpus

Insights into Land Plant Evolution Garnered from the Marchantia polymorpha Genome. (2017, background): “As in other non-seed plants (Banks et al., 2011; Rensing et al., 2008), genes encoding a distinct ethylene-forming enzyme (ACO) that is characteristic of seed plants are not present in M.”
Comprehending crystalline β-carotene accumulation by comparing engineered cell models and the natural carotenoid-rich system of citrus (2011, neutral): “The RTH sequence and gene structure of evolutionarily representative plant species, including Physcomitrella patens, Selaginella moellendorffii, Arabidopsis, and rice were compared (Banks et al., 2011).”
Phytozome: a comparative platform for green plant genomics (2011, background): “0 (21) Setaria italica Foxtail millet JGI assembly v2.”
Classification, Naming and Evolutionary History of Glycosyltransferases from Sequenced Green and Red Algal Genomes (2013, methodology): “moellendorffii [1] and described in detail in Harholt et al.”