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Title: Pathways to de novo domestication of crop wild relatives
Growing knowledge about crop domestication, combined with increasingly powerful gene-editing toolkits, sets the stage for the continual domestication of crop wild relatives and other lesser-known plant species.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1758745 2029889
NSF-PAR ID:
10343126
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Plant Physiology
Volume:
188
Issue:
4
ISSN:
0032-0889
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1746 to 1756
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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  1. Summary

    Many crops are polyploid or have a polyploid ancestry. Recent phylogenetic analyses have found that polyploidy often preceded the domestication of crop plants. One explanation for this observation is that increased genetic diversity following polyploidy may have been important during the strong artificial selection that occurs during domestication.

    In order to test the connection between domestication and polyploidy, we identified and examined candidate genes associated with the domestication of the diverse crop varieties ofBrassica rapa. Like all ‘diploid’ flowering plants,B. rapahas a diploidized paleopolyploid genome and experienced many rounds of whole genome duplication (WGD). We analyzed transcriptome data of more than 100 cultivatedB. rapaaccessions.

    Using a combination of approaches, we identified > 3000 candidate genes associated with the domestication of four majorB. rapacrop varieties. Consistent with our expectation, we found that the candidate genes were significantly enriched with genes derived from the Brassiceae mesohexaploidy. We also observed that paleologs were significantly more diverse than non‐paleologs.

    Our analyses find evidence for that genetic diversity derived from ancient polyploidy played a key role in the domestication ofB. rapaand provide support for its importance in the success of modern agriculture.

     
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  2. Abstract

    Domestication can be considered a specialized mutualism in which a domesticator exerts control over the reproduction or propagation (fitness) of a domesticated species to gain resources or services. The evolution of crops by human-associated selection provides a powerful set of models to study recent evolutionary adaptations and their genetic bases. Moreover, the domestication and dispersal of crops such as rice, maize, and wheat during the Holocene transformed human social and political organization by serving as the key mechanism by which human societies fed themselves. Here we review major themes and identify emerging questions in three fundamental areas of crop domestication research: domestication phenotypes and syndromes, genetic architecture underlying crop evolution, and the ecology of domestication. Current insights on the domestication syndrome in crops largely come from research on cereal crops such as rice and maize, and recent work indicates distinct domestication phenotypes can arise from different domestication histories. While early studies on the genetics of domestication often identified single large-effect loci underlying major domestication traits, emerging evidence supports polygenic bases for many canonical traits such as shattering and plant architecture. Adaptation in human-constructed environments also influenced ecological traits in domesticates such as resource acquisition rates and interactions with other organisms such as root mycorrhizal fungi and pollinators. Understanding the ecological context of domestication will be key to developing resource-efficient crops and implementing more sustainable land management and cultivation practices.

     
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    Modern agriculture depends on a narrow variety of crop species, leaving global food and nutritional security highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and population expansion. Crop improvement using conventional and molecular breeding approaches leveraging plant genetic diversity using crop wild relatives (CWRs) has been one approach to address these issues. However, the rapid pace of the global change requires additional innovative solutions to adapt agriculture to meet global needs. Neodomestication—the rapid and targeted introduction of domestication traits using introgression or genome editing of CWRs—is being explored as a supplementary approach. These methods show promise; however, they have so far been limited in efficiency and applicability. We propose expanding the scope of neodomestication beyond truly wild CWRs to include feral crops as a source of genetic diversity for novel crop development, in this case ‘redomestication’. Feral crops are plants that have escaped cultivation and evolved independently, typically adapting to their local environments. Thus, feral crops potentially contain valuable adaptive features while retaining some domestication traits. Due to their genetic proximity to crop species, feral crops may be easier targets for de novo domestication (i.e. neodomestication via genome editing techniques). In this review, we explore the potential of de novo redomestication as an application for novel crop development by genome editing of feral crops. This approach to efficiently exploit plant genetic diversity would access an underutilized reservoir of genetic diversity that could prove important in support of global food insecurity in the face of the climate change.

     
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