Structure and evolution analysis of pollen receptor-like kinase in Zea mays and Arabidopsis thaliana

• 64 and 73 putative pollen RLKs chosen from maize and Arabidopsis can be divided into 8 subfamilies.
• Expansion of pollen RLKs were mainly caused by segmental duplication.
• Maize might have experienced weaker purifying selection as compare to Arabidopsis.
• Duplication events of Arabidopsis and maize are between 18–69 million years and 0.67–170 million years ago, respectively.

Receptor-like kinase (RLKs) is an important member in protein kinase family which is widely involved in plant growth, development and defense responses. It is significant to analyze the kinase structure and evolution of pollen RLKs in order to study their mechanisms. In our study, 64 and 73 putative pollen RLKs were chosen from maize and Arabidopsis. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the pollen RLKs were conservative and might had existed before divergence between monocot and dicot which were mainly concentrated in RLCK-VII and LRR-III two subfamilies. Chromosomal localization and gene duplication analysis showed the expansion of pollen RLKs were mainly caused by segmental duplication. By calculating Ka/Ks value of extracellular domain, intracellular domain and kinase domain in pollen RLKs, we found that the pollen RLKs duplicated genes had mainly experienced the purifying selection, while maize might have experienced weaker purifying selection. Meanwhile, extracellular domain might have experienced stronger diversifying selection than intracellular domain in both species. Estimation of duplication time showed that the duplication events of Arabidopsis have occurred approximately between 18 and 69 million years ago, compared to 0.67–170 million years ago of maize.

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