Cellulose synthase GeneFamily

The Cellulose Synthase super family in fully sequenced plants and algae BMC plant biology 2009, 9:99

• OBJ: Systematic investigation of 9 Cs1 and 1 CesA gene family from 17 seqeunced algal genome
• Take Home Points:
  • CesA is a super family consists of many Cs1 family of which Cs1A, CslF, CslC, CslH, CslC are some of them
  • The backbone synthases of all major hemicellulose classes except for xylans are known.
  • CSL hypothesis ?
  • CslA and CslC families originated through an ancient gene duplication event in land plants
• Results
  • CS1 Family classification
    • Carried out through protein domain similarity
    • A new Csl family was discovered very recently in cereals and named CslJ (specific to cerials)
    • Generally, a lower selection pressure indicates a higher evolutionary rate
    • Genes that originated relatively recently through gene duplications or by other mechanisms usually evolve more rapidly than the more ancient genes
  • CS1 family
    • CslB/H/E/G/J families have evolved more rapidly than the other Csl families, which lends further support for the hypothesis that these families might have diversified relatively recently to acquire new functions specific to the seed plants
  • CslE: diverged separately after the split of dicots and monocots.