Comparative genomic analysis of unicellular to seed plants by using gene functions of A. thaliana

Availability of the genome sequences of more plants makes it possible to address some of the major questions regarding plants by comparative genomic analysis [1, 2]. A lot of genome sequencing projects are ongoing and one of the projects is for the lycophyte Selaginella moellendorfii, which is considered to be ancestral or primitive for vascular plants and have the impact for unraveling several questions in plant evolution [3]. In this study, we have developed a gene classification system, in which gene functions of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana have been manually curated based on references. By using this system, we performed the comparative genomic analyses of five genome sequences of the plants, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Physcomitrella patens, S. moellendorfii, A. thaliana, and Oryza sativa.