Project description:Intracellular plant defense against pathogens is mediated by a class of disease resistance genes known as NB-LRRs or NLRs (R genes). Many of the diseases these genes protect against are more prevalent in regions of higher rainfall, which provide better growth conditions for the pathogens. As such, we expect a higher selective pressure for the maintenance and proliferation of R genes in plants adapted to wetter conditions. In this study, we enriched libraries for R genes using RenSeq from baits primarily developed from the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) reference genome. We sequenced the R gene libraries of Silphium integrifolium Michx, a perennial relative of sunflower, from 12 prairie remnants across a rainfall gradient in the Central Plains of the United States, with both Illumina short-read (n = 99) and PacBio long-read (n = 10) approaches. We found a positive relationship between the mean effective annual precipitation of a plant's source prairie remnant and the number of R genes in its genome, consistent with intensity of plant pathogen coevolution increasing with precipitation. We show that RenSeq can be applied to the study of ecological hypotheses in non-model relatives of model organisms.
| S-EPMC11371658 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Silphium integrifolium linkage map development
Project description:Silphium integrifolium (Asteraceae) has been identified as a candidate for domestication as a perennial oilseed crop and is assumed to have sporophytic self-incompatibility system-the genetic basis of which is not well understood in the Asteraceae. To address this gap, we sought to map the genomic location of the self-recognition locus (S-locus) in this species. We used a biparental population and genotyping-by-sequencing to create the first genetic linkage map for this species, which contained 198 SNP markers and resolved into the correct number of linkage groups. Then we developed a novel crossing scheme and set of analysis methods in order to infer S-locus genotypes for a subset of these individuals, allowing us to map the trait. Finally, we evaluated potential genes of interest using synteny analysis with the annual sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) genomes. Our results confirm that S. integrifolium does indeed have a sporophytic self-incompatibility system. Our method is effective and efficient, allowed us to map the S. integrifolium S-locus using fewer resources than existing methods, and could be readily applied to other species.
| S-EPMC9076636 | biostudies-literature
Project description:RenSeq sequencing of Silphium integrifolium samples across rainfall gradient