Int. Jr. Bioinformatic and Biological Sci. : v.2 n.3 and 4, p. 165-177. Dec. 2014

DOI No. 10.5958/2321-7111.2014.00014.6

Computational and evolutionary insights into

anthocyanin biosynthesis genes between

Solanaceae and Poaceae

Aumreetam Dinabandhu*

National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology; Pusa Campus,

New Delhi-110012, India.

*Corresponding author: aumreetam@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Six common anthocyanin pathway genes viz. Chalcone synthase (CHS), Chalcone

isomerase (CHI), Flavanone 3-hydroxylase (F3H), Dihydrofolate reductase (DFR),

Anthocyanindin synthase (ANS) and UDPG-flavonoid 3-glucosyl transferase

(UF3GT) were analyzed by performing comparative analysis between different

species of solanaceae and poacea families. Sequence conservation between

different species of these two families was highest in CHS and lowest in CHI .

The number of polymorphic sites between different species of these two families

was highest in ANS and lowest in F3H . McDonald–Kreitman analysis showed that

non-synonymous changes between different species of these two families were

higher for downstream enzymes: UF3GT , DFR and ANS than upstream enzymes:

CHS, CHI and F3H . It was also observed that nucleotide diversity between

these two families was highest in CHI but lowest in F3H . From the evolutionary

analysis it was concluded that that CHI might have undergone ancient duplication

and subsequent divergence during evolution and upstream enzymes CHS and

CHI evolves very slowly than downstream enzymes DFR, ANS and UF3GT not

because of their mutation rate but because of the selective constraint between

different species of solanaceae and poaceae.

Keywords: anthocyanins,computational,enzymes,evolution,poaceae,solanaceae

Anthocyanins are ubiquitously present in higher plants. The anthocyanin

biosynthetic pathway is one of the well studied pathways in plants. The sequential

evolution of enzymes in the pathway made it as a model pathway to understand

evolutionary processes. Duplication and divergence of genes from the pathway

has led to the emergence of new classes of compounds (Rausher, 2006). The

green algae from which land plants have been derived do not seem to have any

anthocyanin enzymes. Bryophytes (mosses) also do not have anthocyanins but

they contain chalcones, flavonols, and flavones (Markham, 1988). They contain

only three upstream enzymes such as Chalcone synthase (CHS), Chalcone