Kehinde Babatunde O, Xie Lingjuan, Song Beng-Kah, Zheng Xiaoming, Fan Longjiang
Institute of Crop Science, Institute of Bioinformatics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
Department of Zoology, University of Lagos, Akoka-Yaba, Lagos 101245, Nigeria.
Biology (Basel). 2024 Sep 5;13(9):697. doi: 10.3390/biology13090697.
Rice is a staple crop in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is mostly produced by Asian cultivars of that were introduced to the continent around the fifteenth or sixteenth century. , the native African rice, has also been planted due to its valuable traits of insect and drought tolerance. Due to competition and resistance evolution, weedy rice has evolved from and , posing an increasing threat to rice production. This paper provides an overview of current knowledge on the introduction and domestication history of cultivated rice in Africa, as well as the genetic properties of African weedy rice that invades paddy fields. Recent developments in genome sequencing have made it possible to uncover findings about 's population structure, stress resilience genes, and domestication bottleneck. Future rice genomic research in Africa should prioritize producing more high-quality reference genomes, quantifying the impact of crop-wild hybridization, elucidating weed adaptation mechanisms through resequencing, and establishing a connection between genomic variation and stress tolerance phenotypes to accelerate breeding efforts.
水稻是撒哈拉以南非洲的主要作物，大多由15或16世纪左右引入该大陆的亚洲栽培品种生产。非洲本土水稻也因其抗虫和耐旱的宝贵特性而被种植。由于竞争和抗性进化，杂草稻已从非洲本土水稻和引入的亚洲栽培品种演变而来，对水稻生产构成越来越大的威胁。本文概述了目前关于非洲栽培水稻引入和驯化历史的知识，以及入侵稻田的非洲杂草稻的遗传特性。基因组测序的最新进展使得揭示非洲本土水稻的种群结构、抗逆基因和驯化瓶颈成为可能。未来非洲的水稻基因组研究应优先生产更多高质量的参考基因组，量化作物-野生杂交的影响，通过重测序阐明杂草适应机制，并建立基因组变异与胁迫耐受性表型之间的联系，以加速育种工作。
