Chinese Bulletin of Botany ›› 2017, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (5): 590-597.DOI: 10.11983/CBB16137

• EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNICATIONS • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Evolution of Defender Against Apoptotic Death (DAD) Genes in Seed Plants

Ying Bao*(), Yuqin Mei   

  1. School of Life Sciences, Qufu Normal University, Qufu 273165, China
  • Received:2016-06-21 Accepted:2017-01-10 Online:2017-09-01 Published:2017-07-10
  • Contact: Ying Bao

Abstract: Defender against apoptotic death (DAD) is a highly conserved cellular apoptosis gene and plays an important role in seed plant growth and development. To fully understand the evolutionary pattern of the DAD gene in seed plants, based on the whole genome data of 31 plants, we analyzed copy number, structure, chromosome location of the DAD genes by using bioinformatics. In addition, along with transcriptome data for seven gymnosperms, we discuss the evolutionary trend of the genes in seed plants. The DAD gene is a low-copy gene with only 1-3 copies in different seed plants, and the length of different DAD protein varies from 108 to 170 aa. Phylogenetic and syntonic analyses further showed that the evolution of the DAD gene in these seed species has a lineage-specific characteristic. Random and block duplication and subsequent gene loss were possibly important ways to maintain the low-copy number of DAD genes in seed plant genomes.

Key words: chromosome location, DAD, duplication pattern, whole genome, gene structure