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Science 15 September 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5793, p. 1537
DOI: 10.1126/science.313.5793.1537e
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This Week in Science

Although the genomes of some model plants such as Arabidopsis and rice have been sequenced, they are different in many key ways from their long-lived, woody relatives, the trees. Tuskan et al. (p. 1596; see the cover and the news story by Stokstad) present the genome sequence of the black cottonwood, Populus trichocarpa, which has undergone two whole genome duplication events, one of which occurred at the same time as in Arabidopsis. The Populus genome has evolved more slowly than Arabidopsis, with reduced rates of nucleotide substitution, tandem gene duplication, and gross structural rearrangements of chromosomes. Comparisons of the gene families between Populus and Arabidopsis reveal a complex pattern, with Populus expansions in disease resistance, meristem development, metabolite transport, and cellulose and lignin biosynthesis.




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)