Ancient duplication events and a high rate of retention of extant pairs of duplicate genes have contributed to an abundance of duplicate genes in plant genomes. These duplicates have contributed to the evolution of novel functions, such as the production of floral structures, induction of disease resistance, and adaptation to stress. Additionally, recent whole-genome duplications that have occurred in the lineages of several domesticated crop species, including wheat (Triticum aestivum), cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), and soybean (Glycine max), have contributed to important agronomic traits, such as grain quality, fruit shape, and flowering time. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms and impacts of gene duplication will be important to future studies of plants in general and of agronomically important crops in particular. In this review, we survey the current knowledge about gene duplication, including gene duplication mechanisms, the potential fates of duplicate genes, models explaining duplicate gene retention, the properties that distinguish duplicate from singleton genes, and the evolutionary impact of gene duplication.

We report the draft genome sequence of the model moss Physcomitrella patens and compare its features with those of flowering plants, from which it is separated by more than 400 million years, and unicellular aquatic algae. This comparison reveals genomic changes concomitant with the evolutionary movement to land, including a general increase in gene family complexity; loss of genes associated with aquatic environments (e.g., flagellar arms); acquisition of genes for tolerating terrestrial stresses (e.g., variation in temperature and water availability); and the development of the auxin and abscisic acid signaling pathways for coordinating multicellular growth and dehydration response. The Physcomitrella genome provides a resource for phylogenetic inferences about gene function and for experimental analysis of plant processes through this plant's unique facility for reverse genetics.

Plant receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are proteins with a predicted signal sequence, single transmembrane region, and cytoplasmic kinase domain. Receptor-like kinases belong to a large gene family with at least 610 members that represent nearly 2.5% of Arabidopsis protein coding genes. We have categorized members of this family into subfamilies based on both the identity of the extracellular domains and the phylogenetic relationships between the kinase domains of subfamily members. Surprisingly, this structurally defined group of genes is monophyletic with respect to kinase domains when compared with the other eukaryotic kinase families. In an extended analysis, animal receptor kinases, Raf kinases, plant RLKs, and animal receptor tyrosine kinases form a well supported group sharing a common origin within the superfamily of serine/threonine/tyrosine kinases. Among animal kinase sequences, Drosophila Pelle and related cytoplasmic kinases fall within the plant RLK clade, which we now define as the RLK/Pelle family. A survey of expressed sequence tag records for land plants reveals that mosses, ferns, conifers, and flowering plants have similar percentages of expressed sequence tags representing RLK/Pelle homologs, suggesting that the size of this gene family may have been close to the present-day level before the diversification of land plant lineages. The distribution pattern of four RLK subfamilies on Arabidopsis chromosomes indicates that the expansion of this gene family is partly a consequence of duplication and reshuffling of the Arabidopsis genome and of the generation of tandem repeats.

Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) belong to the large RLK/Pelle gene family, and it is known that the Arabidopsis thaliana genome contains >600 such members, which play important roles in plant growth, development, and defense responses. Surprisingly, we found that rice (Oryza sativa) has nearly twice as many RLK/Pelle members as Arabidopsis does, and it is not simply a consequence of a larger predicted gene number in rice. From the inferred phylogeny of all Arabidopsis and rice RLK/Pelle members, we estimated that the common ancestor of Arabidopsis and rice had >440 RLK/Pelles and that large-scale expansions of certain RLK/Pelle members and fusions of novel domains have occurred in both the Arabidopsis and rice lineages since their divergence. In addition, the extracellular domains have higher nonsynonymous substitution rates than the intracellular domains, consistent with the role of extracellular domains in sensing diverse signals. The lineage-specific expansions in Arabidopsis can be attributed to both tandem and large-scale duplications, whereas tandem duplication seems to be the major mechanism for recent expansions in rice. Interestingly, although the RLKs that are involved in development seem to have rarely been duplicated after the Arabidopsis–rice split, those that are involved in defense/disease resistance apparently have undergone many duplication events. These findings led us to hypothesize that most of the recent expansions of the RLK/Pelle family have involved defense/resistance-related genes.

Receptor-like kinases (RLKs) are a family of transmembrane proteins with versatile N-terminal extracellular domains and C-terminal intracellular kinases. They control a wide range of physiological responses in plants and belong to one of the largest gene families in the Arabidopsis genome with more than 600 members. Interestingly, this gene family constitutes 60% of all kinases in Arabidopsis and accounts for nearly all transmembrane kinases in Arabidopsis. Analysis of four fungal, six metazoan, and two Plasmodium sp. genomes indicates that the family was represented in all but fungal genomes, indicating an ancient origin for the family with a more recent expansion only in the plant lineages. The RLK/Pelle family can be divided into several subfamilies based on three independent criteria: the phylogeny based on kinase domain sequences, the extracellular domain identities, and intron locations and phases. A large number of receptor-like proteins (RLPs) resembling the extracellular domains of RLKs are also found in the Arabidopsis genome. However, not all RLK subfamilies have corresponding RLPs. Several RLK/Pelle subfamilies have undergone differential expansions. More than 33% of the RLK/Pelle members are found in tandem clusters, substantially higher than the genome average. In addition, 470 of the RLK/Pelle family members are located within the segmentally duplicated regions in the Arabidopsis genome and 268 of them have a close relative in the corresponding regions. Therefore, tandem duplications and segmental/whole-genome duplications represent two of the major mechanisms for the expansion of the RLK/Pelle family in Arabidopsis.

The covalent attachment of ubiquitin is an important determinant for selective protein degradation by the 26S proteasome in plants and animals. The specificity of ubiquitination is often controlled by ubiquitin-protein ligases (or E3s), which facilitate the transfer of ubiquitin to appropriate targets. One ligase type, the SCF E3s are composed of four proteins, cullin1/Cdc53, Rbx1/Roc1/Hrt1, Skp1, and an F-box protein. The F-box protein, which identifies the targets, binds to the Skp1 component of the complex through a degenerate N-terminal ≈60-aa motif called the F-box. Using published F-boxes as queries, we have identified 694 potential F-box genes in Arabidopsis , making this gene superfamily one of the largest currently known in plants. Most of the encoded proteins contain interaction domains C-terminal to the F-box that presumably participate in substrate recognition. The F-box proteins can be classified via a phylogenetic approach into five major families, which can be further organized into multiple subfamilies. Sequence diversity within the subfamilies suggests that many F-box proteins have distinct functions and/or substrates. Representatives of all of the major families interact in yeast two-hybrid experiments with members of the Arabidopsis Skp family supporting their classification as F-box proteins. For some, a limited preference for Skps was observed, suggesting that a hierarchical organization of SCF complexes exists defined by distinct Skp/F-box protein pairs. Collectively, the data shows that Arabidopsis has exploited the SCF complex and the ubiquitin/26S proteasome pathway as a major route for cellular regulation and that a diverse array of SCF targets is likely present in plants.