Evolution and Analysis of Caffeic Acid Transferase (COMT) in Seed Plants.

ABSTRACT

Caffeic acid transferase (COMT) is a key enzyme in the lignin and melatonin synthesis pathways and plays an important role in plant growth and development. All seed plants have two characteristics they have vascular tissues, phloem, and xylem, and they can produce and reproduce seeds. In order to understand the distribution and evolution of COMTs in seed plants, we performed physicochemical property analysis, subcellular localization, phylogenetic analysis, conserved motif analysis, and protein interaction network analysis of 44 COMT homologs from 26 seed plants through in silico. The results showed that in seed plants, the structure of COMT genes tends to be stable in different plant taxa, while the relationship between the chromosomal positions of different COMT genes in the same plant was more intricate. The conserved distribution of COMT in seed plants reflected its highly specialized function.