First published online February 24, 2002; 10.1104/pp.010658
Plant Physiol, March 2002, Vol. 128, pp. 854-864
Plant Expansins Are a Complex Multigene Family with an Ancient
Evolutionary Origin1
Yi
Li,2
Catherine P.
Darley,2*
Verónica
Ongaro,
Andrew
Fleming,
Ori
Schipper,
Sandra L.
Baldauf, and
Simon J.
McQueen-Mason
Department of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5YW, United
Kingdom (Y.L., C.P.D., V.O., S.L.B., S.J.M.-M.); and Institute of Plant
Sciences (LFW D48), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8092
Zurich, Switzerland (A.F., O.S.)
Expansins are a group of extracellular proteins that
directly modify the mechanical properties of plant cell walls, leading to turgor-driven cell extension. Within the completely sequenced Arabidopsis genome, we identified 38 expansin sequences that
fall into three discrete subfamilies. Based on phylogenetic analysis and shared intron patterns, we propose a new, systematic
nomenclature of Arabidopsis expansins. Further phylogenetic analysis,
including expansin sequences found here in monocots, pine (Pinus
radiata, Pinus taeda), fern (Regnellidium diphyllum,
Marsilea quadrifolia), and moss (Physcomitrella
patens) indicate that the three plant expansin
subfamilies arose and began diversifying very early in, if not before,
colonization of land by plants. Closely related "expansin-like"
sequences were also identified in the social amoeba, Dictyostelium discoidium, suggesting that these
wall-modifying proteins have a very deep evolutionary origin.
1
This work was supported by the Biotechnology and
Biological Sciences Research Council (grant nos. 87/P12844, 87/P11582,
and 87/G13911 to Y.L., C.P.D., and S.L.B., respectively). V.O. is funded by Fundacion YPF (Argentina). S.J.M.-M. was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship.
2
These authors contributed equally to the paper.
*
Corresponding author; e-mail cpd2{at}york.ac.uk; fax
44-1904-434312.
© 2002 American Society of Plant Physiologists
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