Screening for genes specific to coniferous species
Tokuko Ujino-Ihara (1, 2) and Yoshihiko Tsumura (1)
1. Tree Genetics Laboratory, Department of Forest Genetics, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 1 Matsunosato, Tsukuba,
Ibaraki, 305-8687 Japan / 2. Corresponding author () / Received December 9, 2007; accepted May 7, 2008; published online July 1, 2008
Summary
Sequence similarity between genes of angiosperms and conifers was analyzed to identify genes specific to conifer lineages.
Using the BLAST and FASTA algorithms, we identified 156 putative conifer-specific transcripts among 5253 unique transcripts
of Cryptomeria japonica D. Don. For more than half of the 156 conifer-specific transcripts obtained, the regions conserved among conifers corresponded
to the predicted open reading frames, suggesting that the obtained transcripts encode functional proteins. Four of the putative
conifer-specific transcripts appeared to be tissue-specific; three were specific to reproductive organs and the other was
specific to wood-forming tissues. Comparisons of highly conserved nucleotide sequences in conifer lineages indicated that
the nucleotide compositions of orthologous genes were similar, although no common features were found among the conifer-specific
genes.
