Reciprocal allopolyploid grasses (Festuca × Lolium) display stable patterns of genome dominance |
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Authors: | Marek Glombik Dario Copetti Jan Bartos Stepan Stoces Zbigniew Zwierzykowski Tom Ruttink Jonathan F Wendel Martin Duchoslav Jaroslav Dolezel Bruno Studer David Kopecky |
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Institution: | 1. Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Institute of Experimental Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, ?lechtitel? 31, 77900 Olomouc, Czech Republic;2. Molecular Plant Breeding, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitaetstrasse 2, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland;3. Department of Environmental Stress Biology, Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Strzeszyńska 34, 60-479 Poznań, Poland;4. Plant Sciences Unit, Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Caritasstraat 39, 9090 Melle, Belgium;5. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011 USA;6. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Palacký University in Olomouc, ?lechtitel? 27, 78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic |
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Abstract: | Allopolyploidization entailing the merger of two distinct genomes in a single hybrid organism, is an important process in plant evolution and a valuable tool in breeding programs. Newly established hybrids often experience massive genomic perturbations, including karyotype reshuffling and gene expression modifications. These phenomena may be asymmetric with respect to the two progenitors, with one of the parental genomes being “dominant.” Such “genome dominance” can manifest in several ways, including biased homoeolog gene expression and expression level dominance. Here we employed a k-mer–based approach to study gene expression in reciprocal Festuca pratensis Huds. × Lolium multiflorum Lam. allopolyploid grasses. Our study revealed significantly more genes where expression mimicked that of the Lolium parent compared with the Festuca parent. This genome dominance was heritable to successive generation and its direction was only slightly modified by environmental conditions and plant age. Our results suggest that Lolium genome dominance was at least partially caused by its more efficient trans-acting gene expression regulatory factors. Unraveling the mechanisms responsible for propagation of parent-specific traits in hybrid crops contributes to our understanding of allopolyploid genome evolution and opens a way to targeted breeding strategies. |
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Keywords: | Gene expression allopolyploidy interspecific hybrids cis/trans regulation genome dominance homoeolog |
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