BMC Evolutionary Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access Phylogeny and evolutionary history of Leymus (Triticeae; Poaceae) based on a single-copy nuclear gene encoding plastid acetyl-CoA carboxylase Xing Fan1,2, Li-Na Sha1, Rui-Wu Yang3, Hai-Qin Zhang1, Hou-Yang Kang1, Cun-Bang Ding3, Li Zhang3, You-Liang Zheng1,2 and Yong-Hong Zhou*1,2 Address: 1Triticeae Research Institute, Sichuan Agricultural University, Wenjiang 611130, Sichuan, PR China, 2Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Resources and Improvement, Ministry of Education, Sichuan Agricultural University, Yaan 625014, Sichuan, PR China and 3Department of Biology and Science, Sichuan Agricultural University, Yaan 625014, Sichuan, PR China Email: Xing Fan -
[email protected]; Li-Na Sha -
[email protected]; Rui-Wu Yang -
[email protected]; Hai- Qin Zhang -
[email protected]; Hou-Yang Kang -
[email protected]; Cun-Bang Ding -
[email protected]; Li Zhang -
[email protected]; You-Liang Zheng -
[email protected]; Yong-Hong Zhou* -
[email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 8 October 2009 Received: 21 January 2009 Accepted: 8 October 2009 BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009, 9:247 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-247 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/9/247 © 2009 Fan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Single- and low- copy genes are less likely subject to concerted evolution, thus making themselves ideal tools for studying the origin and evolution of polyploid taxa.