Innovation Platform of Molecular Biology, College of Landscape and Art, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, China.
Research Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, China.
BMC Plant Biol. 2021 Jun 15;21(1):273. doi: 10.1186/s12870-021-03075-6.
Understanding the genetic mechanisms of local adaptation is an important emerging topic in molecular ecology and evolutionary biology.
Here, we identify the physiological changes and differential expression of genes among different weeping forsythia populations under drought stress in common garden experiments. Physiological results showed that HBWZ might have higher drought tolerance among four populations. RNA-seq results showed that significant differential expression in the genes responding to the synthesis of flavonoids, aromatic substances, aromatic amino acids, oxidation-reduction process, and transmembrane transport occured among four populations. By further reanalysis of results of previous studies, sequence differentiation was found in the genes related to the synthesis of aromatic substances among different weeping forsythia populations.
Overall, our study supports the hypothesis that the dual differentiation in gene efficiency and expression increases among populations in response to heterogeneous environments and is an important evolutionary process of local adaptation. Here, we proposed a new working model of local adaptation of weeping forsythia populations under different intensities of drought stress, which provides new insights for understanding the genetic mechanisms of local adaptation for non-model species.
理解局部适应的遗传机制是分子生态学和进化生物学中一个新兴的重要课题。
在本研究中，我们通过在相同环境条件下进行的群体比较实验，鉴定了不同地区的垂丝海棠种群在干旱胁迫下的生理变化和基因差异表达。生理结果表明，HBWZ 种群可能在四个种群中具有更高的耐旱性。RNA-seq 结果表明，四个种群在响应类黄酮、芳香物质、芳香族氨基酸、氧化还原过程和跨膜运输合成的基因表达上存在显著差异。通过对先前研究结果的进一步重新分析，我们发现不同垂丝海棠种群中与芳香物质合成相关的基因存在序列分化。
总体而言，本研究支持了以下假说，即在异质环境中，种群之间的基因效率和表达的双重分化增加，这是局部适应的一个重要进化过程。在这里，我们提出了一个新的不同干旱胁迫强度下垂丝海棠种群局部适应的工作模型，为理解非模式物种的局部适应遗传机制提供了新的见解。
