Diversity, expansion, and evolutionary novelty of plant DNA-binding transcription factor families

Publication date: Available online 10 August 2016
Source:Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Gene Regulatory Mechanisms
Author(s): Melissa Lehti-Shiu, Nicholas Panchy, Peipei Wang, Sahra Uygun, Shin-Han Shiu
Plant transcription factors (TFs) that interact with specific sequences via DNA-binding domains are crucial for regulating transcriptional initiation. These TFs are fundamental to plant development and environmental response. In addition, expansion of transcription factor families has allowed functional divergence of duplicate copies, which has contributed to novel, and in some cases adaptive, traits in plants. Thus, TFs are central to the generation of the diverse plant species that we see today. Major plant agronomic traits, including those relevant to domestication, have also frequently arisen through changes in TF coding sequence or expression patterns. Here our goal is to provide an overview of plant TF evolution by first comparing diversity of the DNA-binding domains and sizes of these domain families found in plants and other eukaryotes. Because plant TFs are among the most highly expanded gene families in plants, the birth and death process of TFs as well as the mechanisms contributing to their retention are discussed. We also provide recent examples of how TFs have contributed to novel traits that are important in plant evolution and in agriculture.



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