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
. 1999 Jul;15(7):278-84.
doi: 10.1016/s0168-9525(99)01759-x.

The evolution of new structures: clues from plant cytoskeletal genes

R B Meagher  1 , E C McKinney, A V Vitale
Affiliations

The evolution of new structures: clues from plant cytoskeletal genes

R B Meagher et al. Trends Genet. 1999 Jul.

Abstract

How large numbers of genes were recruited simultaneously to build new organ structures is one of the greatest puzzles in evolutionary biology. Here, we present data suggesting that the vegetative and reproductive classes of actins and other cytoskeletal proteins arose concurrently with the macroevolutionary divergence of leaves and reproductive structures in the earliest land plants. That the cytoskeleton is essential for physically programming the development of organs and tissues is well established. Thus, we propose that this regulatory dichotomy represents an ancient landmark event in the global regulation of hundreds of higher-plant genes, an event that is linked to the macroevolution of plant vegetative and reproductive organs. The recent availability of sequence and expression data for large numbers of plant genes should make it possible to dissect this and other major macroevolutionary events.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources