TY  - JOUR
A1  - Streubel, Susanna
A1  - Fritz, Michael Andre
A1  - Teltow, Melanie
A1  - Kappel, Christian
A1  - Sicard, Adrien
T1  - Successive duplication-divergence mechanisms at the RCO locus contributed to leaf shape diversity in the Brassicaceae
JF  - Development : Company of Biologists
N2  - Gene duplication is a major driver for the increase of biological complexity. The divergence of newly duplicated paralogs may allow novel functions to evolve, while maintaining the ancestral one. Alternatively, partitioning the ancestral function among paralogs may allow parts of that role to follow independent evolutionary trajectories. We studied the REDUCED COMPLEXITY (RCO) locus, which contains three paralogs that have evolved through two independent events of gene duplication, and which underlies repeated events of leaf shape evolution within the Brassicaceae. In particular, we took advantage of the presence of three potentially functional paralogs in Capsella to investigate the extent of functional divergence among them. We demonstrate that the RCO copies control growth in different areas of the leaf. Consequently, the copies that are retained active in the different Brassicaceae lineages contribute to define the leaf dissection pattern. Our results further illustrate how successive gene duplication events and subsequent functional divergence can increase trait evolvability by providing independent evolutionary trajectories to specialized functions that have an additive effect on a given trait.
KW  - Plant development
KW  - Gene duplication
KW  - Leaf shape
KW  - Morphological evolution
KW  - Capsella
KW  - Arabidopsis
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.164301
SN  - 0950-1991
SN  - 1477-9129
VL  - 145
IS  - 8
PB  - Company of Biologists
CY  - Cambridge
ER  -