Genetic diversity and population structure of wild and cultivated Crotalaria species based on genotyping-by-sequencing.

Crotalaria is a plant genus that is found all over the world, with over 700 species of herbs and shrubs. The species are potential alternative food and industrial crops due to their adaptability to different environments. Currently, information on the genetic diversity and population structure of these species is scanty. Genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) is a cost-effective high-throughput technique in diversity evaluation of plant species that have not been fully sequenced. In the current study, de novo GBS was used to characterize 80 Crotalaria accessions from five geographical regions in Kenya. A total of 9820 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers were obtained after thinning and filtering, which were then used for the analysis of genetic diversity and population structure in Crotalaria. The proportion of SNPs with a minor allele frequency (maf) > = 0.05 was 45.08%, while the Guanine-Cytosine (GC) content was 0.45, from an average sequence depth of 455,909 reads per base. The transition vs transversion ratio was 1.81 and Heterozygosity (He) ranged between 0.01-0.07 in all the sites and 0.04 to 0.52 in the segregating sites. The mean Tajima's D value for the population was -0.094, suggesting an excess of rare alleles. The fixation index (Fst) between the different populations based on the Wright Fst (1943) ranged from 0.0119 to 0.066 for the Eastern-Western and Nairobi-Western populations. Model based techniques of population structure analysis including structure, k-means and cross-entropy depicted eight clusters in the study accessions. Non-model based techniques especially DAPC depicted poor population stratification. Correspondence Analysis (CA), Principal coordinate analyses (PCoA) and phylogenetic analysis identified a moderate level of population stratification. Results from this study will help conservationists and breeders understand the genetic diversity of Crotalaria. The study also provides valuable information for genetic improvement of domesticated species.

A Mutation in GIANT CHLOROPLAST Encoding a PARC6 Homolog Affects Spikelet Fertility in Rice.

Chloroplasts are not generated de novo but proliferate from a pre-existing population of plastids present in meristematic cells. Chloroplast division is executed by the co-ordinated action of at least two molecular machineries: internal machinery located on the stromal side of the inner envelope membrane and external machinery located on the cytosolic side of the outer envelope membrane. To date, molecular studies of chloroplast division in higher plants have been limited to several species such as Arabidopsis. To elucidate chloroplast division in rice, we performed forward genetics and isolated a mutant displaying large chloroplasts among an ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS)-mutagenized Oryza sativa spp japonica Nipponbare population. Using a map-based approach, this mutation, termed giant chloroplast (gic), was allocated in a gene that encodes a protein that is homologous to Paralog of ARC6 (PARC6), which is known to play a role in chloroplast division. GIC is unique in that it has a long C-terminal extension that is not present in other PARC6 homologs. Characterization of gic phenotypes in a rice field showed that gic exhibited defective growth in seed setting, suggesting that the gic mutant negatively affects the reproductive stage. This report is the first describing a chloroplast division mutant in monocotyledons and its effect on plant development.