Abstract
Prolamins, the seed storage proteins of maize, sorghum and coix were also found in sugarcane. Prolamins are grouped into structurally distinct classes termed the α-, β-, γ- and δ-prolamins. Orthologues for almost all of the α-, β-, γ- and δ-prolamins classes were identified in sugarcane. In maize, there are two molecular weight classes of α-prolamins, the 22 and 19 kD α-zeins. Sugarcane also possesses both the 22 kD and the 19 kD α-prolamins, which we denote as caneins, whereas sorghum and coix contain only the 22 kD α-prolamin (α-kafirin and α-coixin, respectively). Amino acid sequence alignments of the 22 and 19 kD α-prolamins from these plants revealed that both the 19 kD α-zein and the 19 kD α-canein lack around 20 amino acids at the sixth α-helix domain. We postulate that the 19 kD α-prolamins originated from a deletion of the sixth α-helix of a 22 kD counterpart in the saccharum lineage. Saccharum and sorghum diverged around five to nine million years ago (Mya), when only the 22 kD α-prolamins existed. The 19 kD α-canein must therefore have emerged after this time. Sorghum possesses a 19 kD α-prolamin similar to that of sugarcane and maize, but it contains the sixth α-helix domain lacking in the 19 kD α-zein and the 19 kD α-canein. This sorghum α-prolamin that we called 19 kD-like α-kafirin must be the ancestor of the 19 kD α-canein. The 19 kD-like α-kafirin could also be the ancestor of the 19 kD α-zein but it is also possible that the genes encoding the 19 kD α-zein and the 19 kD α-canein have evolved separately in these close groups.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Laudiene Meyer and Jiri Borecky, for the help in the protein analysis. Guilherme Serrano and Thais Rezende e Silva Figueira were supported by Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP).
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Communicated by: Paulo Arruda
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Figueira, T.R.e.S., de Mello Serrano, G.C. & Arruda, P. Evolution of the Genes Encoding Seed Storage Proteins in Sugarcane and Maize. Tropical Plant Biol. 1, 108–119 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-008-9009-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12042-008-9009-y