Abstract
F-box proteins are generally responsible for substrate recognition in the Skp1-Cullin-F-box complexes that are involved in protein degradation via the ubiquitin-26S proteosome pathway. In plants, F-box genes influence a variety of biological processes such as leaf senescence, branching, self-incompatibility and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. The number of F-box genes in Populus (~320) is less than half that found in Arabidopsis (~660) or rice (~680), even though the total number of genes in Populus is equivalent to that in rice and 1.5 times that in Arabidopsis. We performed comparative genomic analysis between the woody perennial plant Populus and the herbaceous annual plants Arabidopsis and rice in order to explicate the functional implications of this large gene family. Our analyses reveal interspecific differences in genomic distribution, orthologous relationship, intron evolution, protein domain structure and gene expression. The set of F-box genes shared by these three species appear to be involved in core biological processes essential for plant growth and development; lineage-specific differences primarily occurred because of an expansion of the F-box genes via tandem duplications in Arabidopsis and rice. The present study provides insights into the relationship between the structure and composition of the F-box gene family in herbaceous and woody species and their associated developmental and physiological features.
