Adaptive expansion of the maize maternally expressed gene (Meg) family involves changes in expression patterns and protein secondary structures of its members.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The Maternally expressed gene (Meg) family is a locally-duplicated gene family of maize which encodes cysteine-rich proteins (CRPs). The founding member of the family, Meg1, is required for normal development of the basal endosperm transfer cell layer (BETL) and is involved in the allocation of maternal nutrients to growing seeds. Despite the important roles of Meg1 in maize seed development, the evolutionary history of the Meg cluster and the activities of the duplicate genes are not understood.

Results

In maize, the Meg gene cluster resides in a 2.3 Mb-long genomic region that exhibits many features of non-centromeric heterochromatin. Using phylogenetic reconstruction and syntenic alignments, we identified the pedigree of the Meg family, in which 11 of its 13 me

SUBMITTER: Xiong Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4236715 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature