Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) originated from Stramenopile which is different from the evolutionary history of red algae, green algae and land plant. Also, during the evolutionary process, plants communicated actively with the terrestrial environment and...
Brown algae (Phaeophyceae) originated from Stramenopile which is different from the evolutionary history of red algae, green algae and land plant. Also, during the evolutionary process, plants communicated actively with the terrestrial environment and brown algae with the marine environment. Nevertheless, there are many parts common to plants, including morphological plasticity, size diversity, and differentiation of specialized tissue. To understand this common features of brown algae, from the evolutionary perspective, we conducted this study by initiating the process of decoding the genetics of four brown algae (i.e., Chorda asiatica, Agarum clathratum, Costaria costata, and Undaria peterseniana) from the taxonomical class of Phaeophyceae and compared with 25 genomes in Stramenopile, including published brown algae i.e., Cladosiphone okamuranus, Ectocarpus siliculosus, Saccharina japonica and Undaria pinnatifida. As a result, we found that the evolutionary relationship of three expanded gene families in brown algae. The first, the evolution of brown algae suitable for the marine environment has been achieved by expanding ferredoxin to increase photosynthetic efficiency and maintaining flavodoxin to prepare for the stress condition. Second, the expansion of the gene that biosynthesis and lyase of alginate, a main component of cell wall, provided the potential to increase the morphological plasticity of brown algae. The third is the expansion of transporter genes related to specific tissue differentiation. All of these are believed to have contributed to the increasing of body size and development of detailed organs in multicellular organisms. All of these features are unique to brown algae in the Stramenopiles. Therefore, we strongly suggest that the specialized tissue differentiation, the diversity of body size and morphological plasticity of brown algae are the result of an efficient photosynthetic system, the increasing of biosynthesis and lysis of alginate, and the expansion of membrane transporter by simultaneously performing cyclic chains.