Pinus banksiana has at least seven expressed alcohol dehydrogenase genes in two linked groups

Pinus banksiana has at least seven expressed alcohol dehydrogenase genes in two linked groups

Daniel J. Perry*,† and
Glenn R. Furnier*,‡

Departments of ^*Forest Resources and ^‡Plant Biology, University of Minnesota, 1530 Cleveland Avenue North, St. Paul, MN 55108-1027

Abstract

The alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) gene family is much more complex in Pinus banksiana than in angiosperms, with at least seven expressed genes organized as two tightly linked clusters. Intron number and position are highly conserved between P. banksiana and angiosperms. Unlike angiosperm Adh genes, numerous duplications, as large as 217 bp, were observed within the noncoding regions of P. banksiana Adh genes and may be a common feature of conifer genes. A high frequency of duplication over a wide range of scales may contribute to the large genome size of conifers.

Footnotes

↵ † To whom reprint requests should be addressed at: Centre de Recherche en Biologie Forestère, Pavillon Charles-Eugène-Marchand, Université Laval, Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada, G1K 7P4.
Ron Sederoff, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Abbreviations: ADH, alcohol dehydrogenase; UTR, untranslated region.

Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank data base (accession nos. U48366–U48376U48366 U48367 U48368 U48369 U48370 U48371 U48372 U48373 U48374 U48375 U48376).