Nebraska Food for Health Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
Complex Biosystems Graduate Program, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
G3 (Bethesda). 2024 Sep 4;14(9). doi: 10.1093/g3journal/jkae145.
Substantial functional metabolic diversity exists within species of cultivated grain crops that directly or indirectly provide more than half of all calories consumed by humans around the globe. While such diversity is the molecular currency used for improving agronomic traits, diversity is poorly characterized for its effects on human nutrition and utilization by gut microbes. Moreover, we know little about agronomic traits' potential tradeoffs and pleiotropic effects on human nutritional traits. Here, we applied a quantitative genetics approach using a meta-analysis and parallel genome-wide association studies of Sorghum bicolor traits describing changes in the composition and function of human gut microbe communities, and any of 200 sorghum seed and agronomic traits across a diverse sorghum population to identify associated genetic variants. A total of 15 multiple-effect loci (MEL) were initially found where different alleles in the sorghum genome produced changes in seed that affected the abundance of multiple bacterial taxa across 2 human microbiomes in automated in vitro fermentations. Next, parallel genome-wide studies conducted for seed, biochemical, and agronomic traits in the same population identified significant associations within the boundaries of 13/15 MEL for microbiome traits. In several instances, the colocalization of variation affecting gut microbiome and agronomic traits provided hypotheses for causal mechanisms through which variation could affect both agronomic traits and human gut microbes. This work demonstrates that genetic factors affecting agronomic traits in sorghum seed can also drive significant effects on human gut microbes, particularly bacterial taxa considered beneficial. Understanding these pleiotropic relationships will inform future strategies for crop improvement toward yield, sustainability, and human health.
在栽培谷物物种中存在大量功能代谢多样性，这些物种直接或间接为全球人类提供了超过一半的卡路里摄入量。虽然这种多样性是用于改良农艺性状的分子货币，但它对人类营养和肠道微生物利用的影响特征很差。此外，我们对农艺性状对人类营养性状的潜在权衡和多效性影响知之甚少。在这里，我们应用了一种定量遗传学方法，使用荟萃分析和平行的高粱全基因组关联研究，研究了描述人类肠道微生物群落组成和功能变化的高粱性状，以及在多样化的高粱群体中，任何 200 个高粱种子和农艺性状，以鉴定相关的遗传变异。总共发现了 15 个多效性基因座 (MEL)，最初发现高粱基因组中的不同等位基因产生了种子的变化，这些变化影响了 2 个人类微生物组中自动体外发酵中多个细菌分类群的丰度。接下来，在同一群体中对种子、生化和农艺性状进行的平行全基因组研究，在微生物组性状的 13/15 MEL 范围内确定了显著的关联。在几种情况下，影响肠道微生物组和农艺性状的变异的共定位为通过变异影响农艺性状和人类肠道微生物的因果机制提供了假设。这项工作表明，影响高粱种子农艺性状的遗传因素也可以对人类肠道微生物产生显著影响，特别是被认为有益的细菌分类群。了解这些多效性关系将为未来的作物改良策略提供信息，以实现产量、可持续性和人类健康。
