Molecular mechanisms involved in functional macroevolution of plant transcription factors.
New Phytol
; 230(4): 1345-1353, 2021 05.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-33368298
Transcription factors (TFs) are key components of the transcriptional regulation machinery. In plants, they accompanied the evolution from unicellular aquatic algae to complex flowering plants that dominate the land environment. The adaptations of the body plan and physiological responses required changes in the biological functions of TFs. Some ancestral gene regulatory networks are highly conserved, while others evolved more recently and only exist in particular lineages. The recent emergence of novel model organisms provided the opportunity for comparative studies, producing new insights to infer these evolutionary trajectories. In this review, we comprehensively revisit the recent literature on TFs of nonseed plants and algae, focusing on the molecular mechanisms driving their functional evolution. We discuss the particular contribution of changes in DNA-binding specificity, protein-protein interactions and cis-regulatory elements to gene regulatory networks. Current advances have shown that these evolutionary processes were shaped by changes in TF expression pattern, not through great innovation in TF protein sequences. We propose that the role of TFs associated with environmental and developmental regulation was unevenly conserved during land plant evolution.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Embryophyta
/
Magnoliopsida
Type of study:
Prognostic_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
New Phytol
Journal subject:
BOTANICA
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Argentina
Country of publication:
United kingdom