[Press release] Creation of a living fossil through gene recombination ~Proposing a new hypothesis of the origins of terrestrial plants~

(2009.09.11)

In a collaborative research effort with Kanazawa University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the research group of the National Institute for Basic Biology, Division of Evolutionary Biology's Yosuke Okano and Mitsuyasu Hasebe has discovered that deletion of a gene in the moss Physcomitrella patens that controls cell memory, known as a polycomb repressive complex 2 gene (PRC2), results in the formation of a plant that closely resembles an extinct branching plant from the fossil record (protracheophytes). Until now it was thought that the ancestors of land plants were similar to modern bryophyte species. However the results of this research have suggested that there is a possibility they were in fact branching structure possessing protracheophytes, and therefore going forward it will be necessary to re-examine the evolutionary process that lead to modern land plants. The results of this research were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. on September 10th 2009.

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