Drought responsive gene expression regulatory divergence between upland and lowland ecotypes of a perennial C4 grass.

ABSTRACT: Climatic adaptation is an example of a genotype-by-environment interaction (G×E) of fitness. Selection upon gene expression regulatory variation can contribute to adaptive phenotypic diversity; however, surprisingly few studies have examined how genome-wide patterns of gene expression G×E are manifested in response to environmental stress and other selective agents that cause climatic adaptation. Here, we characterize drought-responsive expression divergence between upland (drought-adapted) and lowland (mesic) ecotypes of the perennial C4 grass,Panicum hallii, in natural field conditions. Overall, we find that cis-regulatory elements contributed to gene expression divergence across 47% of genes, 7.2% of which exhibit drought-responsive G×E. While less well-represented, we observe 1294 gene

SUBMITTER: Lovell JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4817774 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature