Unraveling ancient hexaploidy through multiply-aligned angiosperm gene maps

Large-scale (segmental or whole) genome duplication has been recurring in angiosperm evolution. Subsequent gene loss and rearrangements further affect gene copy numbers and fractionate ancestral gene linkages across multiple chromosomes. The fragmented "multiple-to-multiple" correspondences resulting from this distinguishing feature of angiosperm evolution complicates comparative genomic studies. Using a robust computational framework that combines information from multiple orthologous and duplicated regions to construct local syntenic networks, we show that a shared ancient hexaploidy event (or perhaps two roughly concurrent genome fusions) can be inferred based on the sequences from several divergent plant…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 0450260, 0421803
• UD
  U.S. Department of Defense

  Award: W81XWH0520013