Isolation of an AGAMOUS homolog from Zamia muricata

AGAMOUS (AG) is a class C MADS-box gene that plays an important role in the development of reproductive organs in angiosperms and gymnosperms. Here, an AGAMOUS homolog was isolated from male and female Zamia muricata. Lengths of nucleotide sequences were 1,262 and 1,537 bp, respectively, and both represented 672 bp of open reading frame corresponding to 224 amino acid residues of predicted protein. The amino acid sequences showed high similarity to AG protein from Cycas (C. elephantipes, C. nongnoochiae, C. taitungensis, C. pranburiensis and C. edentata) and revealed a conserved region at MADSbox (M) and Keratin-like box (K). A phylogenetic tree based on the amino acid sequences of AG protein of angiosperms and gymnosperms indicated that Zamia and gymnosperms were grouped together with high bootstrap support.