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Phylogenetic analysis of new plant myosin sequences
Magdalena Bezanilla1, Amy C Horton, Heather C Sevener
1Department of Biology, Campus Box 1229, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA. manena@biology.wustl.edu
Abstract:
We have sampled a large number of plant taxa, ranging from brown algae to angiosperms, for the presence of myosin sequences. Using phylogenetic analysis, we show that all but two of the new plant myosin sequences fall into two of three preexisting myosin classes. We identified two outlying sequences, which do not fall into any preexisting myosin class. Additionally, all genomic sequences encoding class XI myosins contain an intron in the region studied, suggesting that this genomic region has been conserved over at least 1 billion years of plant evolution. With these data, we can rapidly and consistently classify partial myosin sequences from plants. Our data show that plant myosins do not have clear orthologues in other kingdoms, providing interesting insights into the diversification of myosins.
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