Topic
Study of plant DNA sequences and genome structure, covering crop and wild species to reveal evolution, gene regulation, and adaptation.
UF biologists used a new tool, HGTScanner, to find Hachettea DNA in Amborella, the first known genetic link between the two plants. The link is inferred from sequence alone and has not been observed in the field.
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Ben Mansfeld's team built a Southern crabapple reference genome and sequenced over 150 wild samples, finding 242 DNA regions linked to local climate. The links are to where each tree grew, so the regions are hardiness candidates that still have to be tested in living trees.
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Boyce Thompson Institute researchers found local DNA switches altered up to 23.5% of active genes in tomato hybrids, remote ones no more than 4.6%. Each local switch tunes one gene, so breeders get narrow targets for wild color, sugar and bitterness traits.
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A Vienna-led comparison of three Clusia species finds all three are ancient polyploids whose duplicated genes for night-time CO2 storage were lost, switched off or given new jobs. The paper is in Nature Communications.
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Measuring mutation one generation at a time in Arabidopsis, a Nature study found insertions and deletions that add or remove whole 178-letter repeat units, enough in simulation to build the megabase blocks seen in real centromeres.
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An international team reports in Nature that Rhynchospora tenuis has no meiotic crossovers in either sex, and that selection after fertilization kills off every seed that fails to rebuild the mother's exact chromosome pairing.
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An international team assembled the chromosomes of Streptochaeta spicata, a grass from near the base of the family tree, and used it to reconstruct the ancestral genome behind rice, wheat, maize and sorghum.
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An IPK-led team has published a rye reference genome with complete centromeres for all seven chromosome pairs, and found the one rye segment wheat already borrowed is its least varied version.
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