Homospermidine synthase evolution and the origin(s) of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in Apocynaceae.

ABSTRACT:

Premise

Enzymes that are encoded by paralogous genes and produce identical specialized metabolites in distantly related plant lineages are strong evidence of parallel phenotypic evolution. Inference of phenotypic homology for metabolites produced by orthologous genes is less straightforward, since orthologs may be recruited in parallel into novel pathways. In prior research on pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs), specialized metabolites of Apocynaceae, the evolution of homospermidine synthase (HSS), an enzyme of PA biosynthesis, was reconstructed and a single origin of PAs inferred because HSS enzymes of all known PA-producing Apocynaceae species are orthologous and descended from an ancestral enzyme with the motif (VXXXD) of an optimized HSS.

Methods

We increased sampling, tested

SUBMITTER: Smith CR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11848025 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature