Transcriptomics of developing wild sunflower seeds from the extreme ends of a latitudinal gradient differing in seed oil composition.

ABSTRACT: Seed oil composition, an important agronomic trait in cultivated sunflower, varies latitudinally across the native range of its wild progenitor. This pattern is thought to be driven by selection for a higher proportion of saturated fatty acids in southern populations compared with northern populations, likely due to the different temperatures experienced during seed germination. To investigate whether these differences in fatty acid composition between northern and southern populations correspond to transcriptional variation in the expression of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism, we sequenced RNA from developing seeds of sunflowers from Texas, USA, and Saskatchewan, Canada (the extreme ends of sunflower's latitudinal range) grown in a common garden. We found 4,741 genes to be differe

SUBMITTER: Barnhart MH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9307388 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature