An evolutionary modular view of functional diversity in Arabidopsis uridine diphosphate glucosyltransferase

Abstract:

Uridine diphosphate (UDP)-glycosyltransferases (UGTs), belonging to the family 1 glycosyltransferases (GTs), play important roles in transferring glycosyl moieties and glycosylating secondary metabolites in Arabidopsis thaliana. Reconstructed phylogenomic trees can provide novel insights in studying evolutionary relationship and functions of this multigene family. By combining comprehensive phylogenetic profiles and reconstructed phylogenomic trees, we systemically analyzed 112 Arabidopsis UGTs. In total, we detected five distinct evolutionary conserved modules, and most UGTs were divided into the same module indicating a rather conserved evolutionary routine of Arabidopsis UGTs. We next manually collected the substrates of Arabidopsis UGTs and mapped them to orthologous groups, revealing evolutionary relationships of UGTs in binding specific substrates. By scanning 271 different species, we also predicted several unreported proteins that were closely related to Arabidopsis UGTs.