Evaluating and Characterizing Ancient Whole-Genome Duplications in Plants with Gene Count Data.

ABSTRACT: Whole-genome duplications (WGDs) have helped shape the genomes of land plants, and recent evidence suggests that the genomes of all angiosperms have experienced at least two ancient WGDs. In plants, WGDs often are followed by rapid fractionation, in which many homeologous gene copies are lost. Thus, it can be extremely difficult to identify, let alone characterize, ancient WGDs. In this study, we use a new maximum likelihood estimator to test for evidence of ancient WGDs in land plants and estimate the fraction of new genes copies that are retained following a WGD using gene count data, the number of gene copies in gene families. We identified evidence of many putative ancient WGDs in land plants and found that the genome fractionation rates vary tremendously among ancient WGDs. Analyses o

SUBMITTER: Tiley GP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4860690 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature