• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.323-333
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• 2007

The degree to which parallel evolution utilizes the same genetic mechanisms indicates the degree to which developmental processes constrain or channel phenotypic evolution. A transgenetic strategy was used to elucidate the role of one floral meristem identity gene, LEAFY (LFY), in the evolution of rosette flowering, a plant architecture that has evolved in parallel in several lineages of the mustard family, Brassicaceae. The LFY genes from three rosette flowering species were cloned and introduced into a species with the ancestral architecture, and results indicated that changes at the LFY locus contributed to the evolution of rosette flowering in two of the three lineages, but that in each lineage a different set of genetic partners was involved. Also, LFY was shown to play a role in the evolution of flower size. Transgenetic strategy may be useful in the study of plant morphological evolution and parallelism.