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. 2023 Apr 12;40(5):msad088. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msad088

Fig. 7.

Fig. 7.

Hypothesized mode of MTF evolution. (a) Simplified phylogenetic tree of green plants with highlighted major evolutionary changes of Type II MADS-box genes (branching according to Wickett et al. [2014]). In the stem group of extant streptophytes (charophytes + land plants), an ancestral type II MADS-box gene (illustrated by gray branch color) acquired the K-domain, giving rise to the eponymous “MIKC” domain architecture of the encoded MTFs. In the stem group of extant land plants, a gene duplication of an ancestral MIKC-type gene (illustrated by green branch color) gave rise to the two, land plant–specific, MTF subfamilies MIKCC (blue branch color) and MIKC* (orange branch color). Gray arrow depicts the time point, when the evolutionary changes shown in b occurred. Cartoons of FQCs and DNA-bound MTF dimers indicate presence or absence, respectively, of FQC formation capabilities of MTFs in the respective plant lineages. (b) Following the gene duplication of an ancestral MIKC-type gene (upper part, green background), the first two K-domain exons got duplicated in the gene lineage of MIKC*-type genes (left part, orange background), whereas the first K-domain exon got lost and the last K-domain exon got duplicated in the gene lineage of MIKCC-type genes (right part, blue background).