Allele-specific Expression Reveals Multiple Paths to Highland Adaptation in Maize.

ABSTRACT: Maize is a staple food of smallholder farmers living in highland regions up to 4,000 m above sea level worldwide. Mexican and South American highlands are two major highland maize growing regions, and population genetic data suggest the maize's adaptation to these regions occurred largely independently, providing a case study for convergent evolution. To better understand the mechanistic basis of highland adaptation, we crossed maize landraces from 108 highland and lowland sites of Mexico and South America with the inbred line B73 to produce F1 hybrids and grew them in both highland and lowland sites in Mexico. We identified thousands of genes with divergent expression between highland and lowland populations. Hundreds of these genes show patterns of convergent evolution between Mexico and

SUBMITTER: Hu H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9692238 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature