Frontier Bioscience - Do duplicated genes drive morphological diversity?

秋海棠是最似是而非的植物属之一，在整个热带地区可能有2,000种。虽然这两个物种在花的形态上相似，但植物的形态在整个群体中变化很大，包括复合叶和盾形叶的多个独立进化。调控叶形态的遗传途径在模式物种中已经得到了很好的研究，我们已经确定了秋海棠中关键基因的直系同源物。由于秋海棠科植物在进化早期的基因组复制，以及该类群典型的基因组动态，许多关键基因以复制基因或小基因家族的形式存在于秋海棠属物种中

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