Summary
Chalcone synthase (CHS) is the key enzyme of the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway in plants. cDNAs specific for CHS have been isolated and sequenced for the following species:Hordeum vulgare (1477 bp),Magnolia liliiflora (1359 bp),Petunia hybrida (1335 bp),Ranunculus acer (1334 bp and 1358 bp), andZea mays (1461 bp). Comparison of the coding regions of these CHS cDNA sequences including the sequences ofAntirrhinum majus (Sommer and Saedler 1986) andPetroselinum hortense (Reimold et al. 1983) reveals a similarity higher than 66% at the nucleotide and higher than 80% at the amino acid level. The CHS transcript is G/C rich in monocotyledons (65.7%–69.3%), but not in dicotyledons (45.5%–53.9%). The monocotyledonous plants show a strong codon bias preferring codons with a G or C in the third position. A phylogenetic tree was constructed on the basis of nucleotide sequence comparison; it is evident that the branching order ofRanunculus acer andPetroselinum hortense is changed as compared to the morphological order. Splitting of the CHS coding region into two parts represented by the common position of one intron seems to indicate that the first exon ofPetroselinum hortense evolved in a way different from the same exon of all other species.
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Niesbach-Klösgen, U., Barzen, E., Bernhardt, J. et al. Chalcone synthase genes in plants: A tool to study evolutionary relationships. J Mol Evol 26, 213–225 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02099854
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02099854