dc.contributor.author	Zhang, Yeting	en
dc.contributor.author	Fernández-Aparicio, Mónica	en
dc.contributor.author	Wafula, Eric K.	en
dc.contributor.author	Das, Malay	en
dc.contributor.author	Jiao, Yuannian	en
dc.contributor.author	Wickett, Norman J.	en
dc.contributor.author	Honaas, Loren A.	en
dc.contributor.author	Ralph, Paula E.	en
dc.contributor.author	Wojciechowski, Martin F.	en
dc.contributor.author	Timko, Michael P.	en
dc.contributor.author	Yoder, John I.	en
dc.contributor.author	Westwood, James H.	en
dc.contributor.author	dePamphilis, Claude W.	en
dc.contributor.department	School of Plant and Environmental Sciences	en
dc.date.accessioned	2013-06-09T07:28:39Z	en
dc.date.available	2013-06-09T07:28:39Z	en
dc.date.issued	2013-02-20	en
dc.date.updated	2013-06-09T07:28:39Z	en
dc.description.abstract	Background Parasitic plants, represented by several thousand species of angiosperms, use modified structures known as haustoria to tap into photosynthetic host plants and extract nutrients and water. As a result of their direct plant-plant connections with their host plant, parasitic plants have special opportunities for horizontal gene transfer, the nonsexual transmission of genetic material across species boundaries. There is increasing evidence that parasitic plants have served as recipients and donors of horizontal gene transfer (HGT), but the long-term impacts of eukaryotic HGT in parasitic plants are largely unknown. Results Here we show that a gene encoding albumin 1 KNOTTIN-like protein, closely related to the albumin 1 genes only known from papilionoid legumes, where they serve dual roles as food storage and insect toxin, was found in Phelipanche aegyptiaca and related parasitic species of family Orobanchaceae, and was likely acquired by a Phelipanche ancestor via HGT from a legume host based on phylogenetic analyses. The KNOTTINs are well known for their unique “disulfide through disulfide knot” structure and have been extensively studied in various contexts, including drug design. Genomic sequences from nine related parasite species were obtained, and 3D protein structure simulation tests and evolutionary constraint analyses were performed. The parasite gene we identified here retains the intron structure, six highly conserved cysteine residues necessary to form a KNOTTIN protein, and displays levels of purifying selection like those seen in legumes. The albumin 1 xenogene has evolved through >150 speciation events over ca. 16 million years, forming a small family of differentially expressed genes that may confer novel functions in the parasites. Moreover, further data show that a distantly related parasitic plant, Cuscuta, obtained two copies of albumin 1 KNOTTIN-like genes from legumes through a separate HGT event, suggesting that legume KNOTTIN structures have been repeatedly co-opted by parasitic plants. Conclusions The HGT-derived albumins in Phelipanche represent a novel example of how plants can acquire genes from other plants via HGT that then go on to duplicate, evolve, and retain the specialized features required to perform a unique host-derived function.	en
dc.description.version	Published version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	BMC Evolutionary Biology. 2013 Feb 20;13(1):48	en
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-13-48	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10919/23187	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International	en
dc.rights.holder	Yeting Zhang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	en
dc.title	Evolution of a horizontally acquired legume gene, albumin 1, in the parasitic plant Phelipanche aegyptiaca and related species	en
dc.title.serial	BMC Evolutionary Biology	en
dc.type	Article - Refereed	en
dc.type.dcmitype	Text	en

Evolution of a horizontally acquired legume gene, albumin 1, in the parasitic plant Phelipanche aegyptiaca and related species

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