African genomes illuminate the early history and transition to selfing in <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>.

ABSTRACT: Over the past 20 y, many studies have examined the history of the plant ecological and molecular model, Arabidopsis thaliana, in Europe and North America. Although these studies informed us about the recent history of the species, the early history has remained elusive. In a large-scale genomic analysis of African A. thaliana, we sequenced the genomes of 78 modern and herbarium samples from Africa and analyzed these together with over 1,000 previously sequenced Eurasian samples. In striking contrast to expectations, we find that all African individuals sampled are native to this continent, including those from sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, we show that Africa harbors the greatest variation and represents the deepest history in the A. thaliana lineage. Our results also

SUBMITTER: Durvasula A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5441814 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature