Liu Shuo, Aishan Saimire, Liu Qiuyu, Lv Lu, Ma Kang, Fan Kangjun, Zhang Kehui, Qin Yonghua, Li Gang, Hu Xueli, Hu Zunhong, He Junwei, Liu Hong, Qin Rui
Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for Protection and Application of Special Plant Germplasm in Wuling Area of China, College of Life Sciences, South-Central Minzu University, Wuhan, 430074, China.
Industrial Crop Research Institute, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Kunming, 650205, China.
Theor Appl Genet. 2025 Apr 10;138(5):97. doi: 10.1007/s00122-025-04874-3.
Two cultivated safflowers from distinct areas elucidate the genetic diversity present in the linoleic acid biosynthesis, flowering time and flavonoid biosynthesis. The process of domestication facilitates the adaptation of crops to agricultural environments. In this study, we selected two representative safflower cultivars that has been domesticated in two distinct areas in China as samples to investigate their genetic diversity due to local environmental adaption. Yunhong-7 is a locally bred safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) cultivar, that has been currently widely cultivated in Yunnan Province, Southwest China, and Anhui-1 is a safflower cultivar that was locally bred in Anhui Province, East China. We firstly generated the chromosome-scale genome assembly for yunhong-7 cultivar by combining PacBio and Hi-C technologies. Through comparative genomic analysis, we identified structural variations (SVs) between yunhong-7 and anhui-1, which revealed their genetic differences in the pathways of fatty acid biosynthesis, circadian rhythm and flavonoid biosynthesis. Subsequently, a total of 40 non-redundant fatty acid desaturase 2 (FAD2) genes (39 for yunhong-7 and 20 for anhui-1) were identified, revealing the presence of copy-number variation and major genes change between yunhong-7 and anhui-1. The presented results suggested that changes in SVs may induce alterations in the expression of flowering-related genes, which could explain the observed early flowering phenotype in yunhong-7 compared to anhui-1. We identified a total of 197 non-redundant UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGT) genes. Based on prokaryotic expression system, we investigated the catalytic functions of two unique UGT genes (CtUGT.18 and CtUGT.191). The current study increases our knowledge of genetic diversity among crop cultivars resulting from distinct domestication processes and thus could contribute to the advancement of traits research and the safflower breeding.
来自不同地区的两个栽培红花品种阐明了亚油酸生物合成、开花时间和类黄酮生物合成中存在的遗传多样性。驯化过程有助于作物适应农业环境。在本研究中，我们选择了在中国两个不同地区驯化的两个代表性红花品种作为样本，以研究它们因当地环境适应性而产生的遗传多样性。云红7是一个当地培育的红花（Carthamus tinctorius）品种，目前在中国西南部的云南省广泛种植，而皖花1是一个在中国东部安徽省当地培育的红花品种。我们首先通过结合PacBio和Hi-C技术生成了云红7品种的染色体水平基因组组装。通过比较基因组分析，我们鉴定了云红7和皖花1之间的结构变异（SVs），这揭示了它们在脂肪酸生物合成、昼夜节律和类黄酮生物合成途径中的遗传差异。随后，共鉴定出40个非冗余脂肪酸去饱和酶2（FAD2）基因（云红7有39个，皖花1有20个），揭示了云红7和皖花1之间存在拷贝数变异和主要基因变化。所呈现的结果表明，SVs的变化可能会诱导开花相关基因表达的改变，这可以解释与皖花1相比云红7中观察到的早花表型。我们共鉴定出197个非冗余UDP-葡萄糖醛酸基转移酶（UGT）基因。基于原核表达系统，我们研究了两个独特的UGT基因（CtUGT.18和CtUGT.191）的催化功能。当前的研究增加了我们对不同驯化过程导致的作物品种间遗传多样性的了解，因此有助于性状研究和红花育种的进展。
