MADS-box transcriptional regulators play important roles during plant development. Sun et al. study structural and functional variation of FUL-like (AP1 subfamily), SEP-like and AGL6-like genes in the basal eudicot Epimedium sagittatum and provide a description of EsFUL-like, EsAGL2-1, EsAGL2-2 and EsAGL6-like function divergence and conservation in comparison to a selection of model core eudicots. The results highlight how organization in genomic segments containing A- and E-class genes in sequenced model species has resulted in similar topologies of AP1 and SEP-like gene trees.
