Ancient tandem duplication of CYCLOIDEA is associated with the evolution of capitulum development in Asteraceae
- 1Nanjing Agricultural University
Abstract
Asteraceae is one of the largest and most diverse families of flowering plants. Much of their evolutionary success is attributed to their unique inflorescence structure-the capitulum. Despite their profound adaptive and taxonomic significance, the evolutionary genetic mechanisms underlying Asteraceae capitulum diversification remains poorly understood. We integrated comparative genomic analyses of 35 Asteraceae genomes with developmental transcriptome profiling of ray and disc florets. Our results uncovered a deeply conserved CYC2e-CYC2c-CYC2d-CYC2g-CYC2b tandem gene cluster that is prevalent across the Asteraceae family. We demonstrated that this tandem cluster arose during the early evolutionary diversification of Asteraceae. Subsequent lineage-specific gene retention and loss events have reshaped the composition of this cluster across different Asteraceae lineages. Notably, key members of this cluster, particularly CYC2c, CYC2d, and CYC2g, are preferentially retained in lineages with ray florets, which is consistent with their roles in regulating the ray floret development. Collectively, our findings establish a mechanistic link between the evolutionary divergence, spatiotemporal expression differentiation of the CYC2 tandem cluster as a key genetic driver underlying the morphological diversification and evolutionary success of Asteraceae.
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026ancient,
title = {{Ancient tandem duplication of CYCLOIDEA is associated with the evolution of capitulum development in Asteraceae}},
author = {D. Zhang and Y. Gao and Y. Qian and Y. Sun and J. Zhang and Y. Liao and Y. He and S. Chen and F. Chen and B. DING},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.30.748160},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.30.748160v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Ancient tandem duplication of CYCLOIDEA is associated with the evolution of capitulum development in Asteraceae
AU - D. Zhang
AU - Y. Gao
AU - Y. Qian
AU - Y. Sun
AU - J. Zhang
AU - Y. Liao
AU - Y. He
AU - S. Chen
AU - F. Chen
AU - B. DING
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/30
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.30.748160
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.30.748160v1
AB - Asteraceae is one of the largest and most diverse families of flowering plants. Much of their evolutionary success is attributed to their unique inflorescence structure-the capitulum. Despite their profound adaptive and taxonomic significance, the evolutionary genetic mechanisms underlying Asteraceae capitulum diversification remains poorly understood. We integrated comparative genomic analyses of 35 Asteraceae genomes with developmental transcriptome profiling of ray and disc florets. Our results uncovered a deeply conserved CYC2e-CYC2c-CYC2d-CYC2g-CYC2b tandem gene cluster that is prevalent across the Asteraceae family. We demonstrated that this tandem cluster arose during the early evolutionary diversification of Asteraceae. Subsequent lineage-specific gene retention and loss events have reshaped the composition of this cluster across different Asteraceae lineages. Notably, key members of this cluster, particularly CYC2c, CYC2d, and CYC2g, are preferentially retained in lineages with ray florets, which is consistent with their roles in regulating the ray floret development. Collectively, our findings establish a mechanistic link between the evolutionary divergence, spatiotemporal expression differentiation of the CYC2 tandem cluster as a key genetic driver underlying the morphological diversification and evolutionary success of Asteraceae.
ER -