Traces of strong selective pressures in the genomes of C4 grasses.

C4 photosynthesis is nature's response to CO2 limitations, and evolved recurrently in several groups of plants. To identify genes related to C4 photosynthesis, Huang et al. looked for evidence of past episodes of adaptive evolution in the genomes of C4 grasses. They identified a large number of candidate genes that evolved under divergent selection, indicating that, besides alterations to expression patterns, the history of C4 involved strong selection on protein-coding sequences.