University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Department of Biotechnology, Institute of Computational Biology, Vienna, Austria.
USDA-ARS, Sugarbeet and Bean Research Unit, East Lansing, MI, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Apr 19;13(1):2021. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29676-9.
Cultivated beets (Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris), including sugar beet, rank among the most important crops. The wild ancestor of beet crops is the sea beet Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima. Species and subspecies of wild beets are readily crossable with cultivated beets and are thus available for crop improvement. To study genomic relationships in the genus Beta, we sequence and analyse 606 beet genomes, encompassing sugar beet, sea beet, B. v. adanensis, B. macrocarpa, and B. patula. We observe two genetically distinct groups of sea beets, one from the Atlantic coast and the other from the Mediterranean area. Genomic comparisons based on k-mers identify sea beets from Greece as the closest wild relatives of sugar beet, suggesting that domestication of the ancestors of sugar beet may be traced to this area. Our work provides comprehensive insight into the phylogeny of wild and cultivated beets and establishes a framework for classification of further accessions of unknown (sub-)species assignment.
栽培甜菜（Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris），包括糖用甜菜，是最重要的作物之一。甜菜作物的野生祖先是海甜菜 Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima。野生甜菜的种和亚种与栽培甜菜很容易杂交，因此可用于作物改良。为了研究贝塔属的基因组关系，我们对 606 个甜菜基因组进行了测序和分析，其中包括糖用甜菜、海甜菜、B. v. adanensis、B. macrocarpa 和 B. patula。我们观察到两个具有遗传差异的海甜菜群体，一个来自大西洋海岸，另一个来自地中海地区。基于 k-mer 的基因组比较确定来自希腊的海甜菜是糖用甜菜最接近的野生亲缘种，这表明糖用甜菜的祖先可能是在这个地区被驯化的。我们的工作为野生和栽培甜菜的系统发育提供了全面的见解，并为进一步分类未知（亚种）属的材料建立了框架。
