Frontier Bioscience - Do duplicated genes drive morphological diversity?

海棠是最似是而非的植物属之一，在热带地区发现了大约2000种。虽然该物种在花形态上相似，但营养形态在整个群体中差异很大，包括复合叶和盾状叶的多个独立进化。调控叶片形态的遗传途径已经在模式物种中得到了很好的研究，我们已经确定了海棠中关键基因的同源物。由于在海棠科植物的早期进化中存在基因组复制，以及该群体典型的基因组动力学，许多关键基因以重复基因或小基因家族的形式存在于海棠物种中

Begonia is one of the most specious plant genera with likely 2,000 species found throughout the tropics. Although the species are similar in floral form vegetative form varies widely across the group, including multiple independent evolutions of compound and peltate leaves. The genetic pathways regulating leaf form have been well studied in model species and we have identified orthologs of the key genes in Begonia. Due to a genome duplication early in the evolution of the Begoniacea, and to the genome dynamics typical of the group, many of the key genes are present in Begonia species as duplicated genes or small gene families