Myosin XI is associated with fitness and adaptation to aridity in wild pearl millet.

Phenotypic changes in plants can be observed along many environmental gradients and are determined by both environmental and genetic factors. The identification of alleles associated with phenotypic variations is a rapidly developing area of research. We studied the genetic basis of phenotypic variations in 11 populations of wild pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) on two North-South aridity gradients, one in Niger and one in Mali. Most of the 11 phenotypic traits assessed in a common garden experiment varied between the populations studied. Moreover, the size of the inflorescence, the number of flowers and aboveground dry mass co-varied positively with a decrease in rainfall. To decipher the genetic basis of these phenotypes, we used an association mapping strategy with a mixed model. We found two SNPs on the same myosin XI contig significantly associated with variations in the average number of flowers. Both the allele frequency of the two SNPs and the average number of flowers co-varied with the rainfall gradient on the two gradients. Interestingly, this gene was also a target of selection during domestication. The Myosin XI gene is thus a good candidate for fitness-related adaptation in wild populations.

Signatures of local adaptation in lowland and highland teosintes from whole-genome sequencing of pooled samples.

Spatially varying selection triggers differential adaptation of local populations. Here, we mined the determinants of local adaptation at the genomewide scale in the two closest maize wild relatives, the teosintes Zea mays ssp parviglumis and ssp. mexicana. We sequenced 120 individuals from six populations: two lowland, two intermediate and two highland populations sampled along two altitudinal gradients. We detected 8 479 581 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) covered in the six populations with an average sequencing depth per site per population ranging from 17.0× to 32.2×. Population diversity varied from 0.10 to 0.15, and linkage disequilibrium decayed very rapidly. We combined two differentiation-based methods, and correlation of allele frequencies with environmental variables to detect outlier SNPs. Outlier SNPs displayed significant clustering. From clusters, we identified 47 candidate regions. We further modified a haplotype-based method to incorporate genotype uncertainties in haplotype calling, and applied it to candidate regions. We retrieved evidence for selection at the haplotype level in 53% of our candidate regions, and in 70% of the cases the same haplotype was selected in the two lowland or the two highland populations. We recovered a candidate region located within a previously characterized inversion on chromosome 1. We found evidence of a soft sweep at a locus involved in leaf macrohair variation. Finally, our results revealed frequent colocalization between our candidate regions and loci involved in the variation of traits associated with plant-soil interactions such as root morphology, aluminium and low phosphorus tolerance. Soil therefore appears to be a major driver of local adaptation in teosintes.

Diversity and linkage disequilibrium features in a composite public/private dent maize panel: consequences for association genetics as evaluated from a case study using flowering time.

Recent progress in genotyping and resequencing techniques have opened new opportunities for deciphering quantitative trait variation by looking for associations between traits of interest and polymorphisms in panels of diverse inbred lines. Association mapping raises specific issues related to the choice of appropriate (i) panels and marker-densities and (ii) statistical methods to capture associations. In this study, we used a panel of 314 maize inbred lines from the dent pool, composed of inbred material from public institutes (113 inbred lines) and a private company (201 inbred lines). We showed that local LD was higher and genetic diversity lower in the material of private origin than in the public material. We compared the results obtained by different software for identifying population structure and computing relatedness among lines, and ran association tests for earliness related traits. Our results confirmed the importance of the mite polymorphism of Vgt1 on flowering time, but also showed that its effect can be captured by zmRap2.7 polymorphisms located 70 kb apart. We also highlighted associations with polymorphisms within genes putatively involved in lignin biosynthesis pathway, which deserve further investigations.

Contrasted patterns of selection since maize domestication on duplicated genes encoding a starch pathway enzyme.

Maize domestication from teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis) was accompanied by an increase of kernel size in landraces. Subsequent breeding has led to a diversification of kernel size and starch content among major groups of inbred lines. We aim at investigating the effect of domestication on duplicated genes encoding a key enzyme of the starch pathway, the ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase (AGPase). Three pairs of paralogs encode the AGPase small (SSU) and large (LSU) subunits mainly expressed in the endosperm, the embryo and the leaf. We first validated the putative sequence of LSU(leaf) through a comparative expression assay of the six genes. Second, we investigated the patterns of molecular evolution on a 2 kb coding region homologous among the six genes in three panels: teosintes, landraces, and inbred lines. We corrected for demographic effects by relying on empirical distributions built from 580 previously sequenced ESTs. We found contrasted patterns of selection among duplicates: three genes exhibit patterns of directional selection during domestication (SSU(end), LSU(emb)) or breeding (LSU(leaf)), two exhibit patterns consistent with diversifying (SSU(leaf)) and balancing selection (SSU(emb)) accompanying maize breeding. While patterns of linkage disequilibrium did not reveal sign of coevolution between genes expressed in the same organ, we detected an excess of non-synonymous substitutions in the small subunit functional domains highlighting their role in AGPase evolution. Our results offer a different picture on AGPase evolution than the one depicted at the Angiosperm level and reveal how genetic redundancy can provide flexibility in the response to selection.

Maize Sh2 gene is constrained by natural selection but escaped domestication.

In Zea mays L., we studied the molecular evolution of Shrunken2 (Sh2), a gene that encodes the large subunits of a major enzyme in endosperm starch biosynthesis, ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase. We compared 4669 bp of the Sh2 coding region on 50 accessions of maize and teosinte. Very few nucleotide polymorphisms were found when compared with other genes in Z. mays, revealing an effect of purifying selection in the whole species that predates domestication. Additionally, the comparison of Sh2 sequences in all Z. mays subspecies and outgroups Z. diploperennis and Tripsacum dactyloides suggests the occurrence of an ancient selective sweep in the Sh2 3' region. The amount and nature of nucleotide diversity are similar in both maize and teosinte, confirming previous results that suggested that Sh2 has not been involved in maize domestication. The very low level of nucleotide diversity as well as the highly conserved protein sequence suggest that natural selection retained effective Sh2 allele(s) long before agriculture started, making human selection inefficient on this gene.

Genetic diversity associated with variation in silage corn digestibility for three O-methyltransferase genes involved in lignin biosynthesis.

Polymorphisms within three candidate genes for lignin biosynthesis were investigated to identify alleles useful for the improvement of maize digestibility. The allelic diversity of two caffeoyl-CoA 3-O-methyltransferase genes, CCoAOMT2 and CCoAOMT1, as well as that of the aldehyde O-methyltransferase gene, AldOMT, was evaluated for 34 maize lines chosen for their varying degrees of cell wall digestibility. Frequency of nucleotide changes averaged one SNP every 35 bp. Ninety-one indels were identified in non-coding regions and only four in coding regions. Numerous distinct and highly diverse haplotypes were identified at each locus. Numerous sites were in linkage disequilibrium that declined rapidly within a few hundred bases. For F4, an early flint French line with high cell wall digestibility, the CCoAOMT2 first exon presented many non-synonymous polymorphisms. Notably we found an 18-bp indel, which resembled a microsatellite and was associated with cell wall digestibility variation. Additionally, the CCoAOMT2 gene co-localized with a QTL for cell wall digestibility and lignin content. Together, these results suggest that genetic diversity investigated on a broader genetic basis could contribute to the identification of favourable alleles to be used in the molecular breeding of elite maize germplasm.