From the archives: evolutionary origins of Delphinieae flowers, pseudogenes, and the light-responsive localization of COP1.

This document is a summary of three articles published in the Plant Cell journal. The first article discusses the evolutionary origins of Delphinieae flowers and the genes that control their symmetry. The study found that certain genes in Delphinieae species have higher expression levels compared to their counterparts in Nigelleae species, and silencing these genes resulted in less symmetrical flowers. The second article focuses on pseudogenes, nonfunctional replicas of protein-coding genes, and their potential role in post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms. The study found that pseudogenes exhibit sequence alterations and are associated with the expression of long noncoding RNAs. The third article explores the light-responsive localization of the COP1 protein, which plays a role in repressing photomorphogenesis. The study identified specific signals within the COP1 protein that govern its movement between the nucleus and cytoplasm in response to light. [Extracted from the article]