Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Dec;240(6):2204-2209.
doi: 10.1111/nph.19242. Epub 2023 Sep 2.

Genome evolution in plants and the origins of innovation

James W Clark  1
Affiliations
Free article
Review

Genome evolution in plants and the origins of innovation

James W Clark. New Phytol. 2023 Dec.
Free article

Abstract

Plant evolution has been characterised by a series of major novelties in their vegetative and reproductive traits that have led to greater complexity. Underpinning this diversification has been the evolution of the genome. When viewed at the scale of the plant kingdom, plant genome evolution has been punctuated by conspicuous instances of gene and whole-genome duplication, horizontal gene transfer and extensive gene loss. The periods of dynamic genome evolution often coincide with the evolution of key traits, demonstrating the coevolution of plant genomes and phenotypes at a macroevolutionary scale. Conventionally, plant complexity and diversity have been considered through the lens of gene duplication and the role of gene loss in plant evolution remains comparatively unexplored. However, in light of reductive evolution across multiple plant lineages, the association between gene loss and plant phenotypic diversity warrants greater attention.

Keywords: gene duplication; gene loss; genomics; land plants; phylogenomics.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Albalat R, Cañestro C. 2016. Evolution by gene loss. Nature Reviews Genetics 17: 379-391.
    1. Barrera-Redondo J, Lotharukpong JS, Drost H-G, Coelho SM. 2023. Uncovering gene-family founder events during major evolutionary transitions in animals, plants and fungi using GenEra. Genome Biology 24: 54.
    1. Bowles AM, Bechtold U, Paps J. 2020. The origin of land plants is rooted in two bursts of genomic novelty. Current Biology 30: 530-536.
    1. Bowles AM, Paps J, Bechtold U. 2022. Water-related innovations in land plants evolved by different patterns of gene cooption and novelty. New Phytologist 235: 732-742.
    1. Clark JW, Harris BJ, Hetherington AJ, Hurtado-Castano N, Brench RA, Casson S, Williams TA, Gray JE, Hetherington AM. 2022. The origin and evolution of stomata. Current Biology 32: R539-R553.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources