Abstract Detail

Comparative Genomics/Transcriptomics

Rajewski, Alex [1], Maheepala, Dinusha [2], Litt, Amy [3].

Multispecies fruit transcriptomes highlight divergence across developmental and evolutionary time.

Among angiosperms there have been repeated evolutionary transitions from an ancestral dry fruit to a derived fleshy fruit, but little is known about the transcriptomic changes that accompany and potentially enable these transitions. Genetically, fruit development has been best characterized in the dry-fruited model plant Arabidopsis thaliana; however, Brassicaeae lacks fleshy fruit species for easy comparison. Studies of fleshy fruit have routinely and successfully used tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) as a model. Unfortunately, tomato and Arabidopsis diverged from a common ancestor over 100 million years ago, and comparisons are further complicated by the intense artificial selection imposed on cultivated tomato. Here, we extend the taxonomic sampling to include the closest wild relative of cultivated tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium, as well as a more closely related dry-fruited tobacco species, Nicotiana obtusifolia. By sequencing RNA from pericarp tissue at several comparable developmental stages in these three solanaceous species and incorporating publicly available data from Arabidopsis, we are able to analyze expression of orthologous genes in a robust statistical framework. Our results show persistently conserved expression patterns among the widely diverged dry-fruited species as well as striking differences among the two closely related fleshy fruited species. Interestingly, approximately half of the orthologous genes examined show no divergence in expression among any of the four species in this study, demonstrating the potential for a core group of conserved fruit development genes.

Related Links:
Mason Lab
Goolsby Lab
J. Grey Monroe Website

1 - UC Riverside, Botany And Plant Science, 900 University Ave, Batchelor Hall, Riverside, CA, 92521, United States
2 - 1252 East Weimer Circle, #52, Tucson, AZ, 85719, United States
3 - University Of California, Riverside, Botany And Plant Sciences, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA, 92521, United States

Keywords:
tomato
tobacco
Arabidopsis
transcriptome
fruit
pericarp
ortholog
domestication.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: CG1, Functional & Comparative Genetics/Genomics I
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Tuesday, July 28th, 2020
Time: 12:45 PM
Number: CG1002
Abstract ID:219
Candidate for Awards:Margaret Menzel Award