| Abstract Detail
Genomics / Proteomics Lai, Zhao [1], Kane, Nolan, C [2], Zou, Yi [3], Rieseberg, Loren H. [4]. Natural Variation in Gene Expression between Wild & Weedy Populations of Helianthus annuus. The molecular genetic changes underlying the transformation of wild plants into agricultural weeds are poorly understood. Here we use a sunflower cDNA microarray to detect variation in gene expression between two wild (non-weedy) Helianthus annuus populations from Utah and Kansas, and four weedy H. annuus populations collected from agricultural fields in Utah, Kansas, Indiana and California. When grown in a common growth chamber environment, populations differed substantially in their gene expression patterns, indicating extensive genetic differentiation. Overall, 165 uni-genes, representing about 5% of total genes on the array, showed significant differential expression in one or more weedy populations when compared to both wild populations. This subset of genes is enriched for abiotic/biotic stimulus and stress response proteins, which may underlie niche transitions from the natural sites to agricultural fields for H. annuus. However, only a small proportion of the differentially expressed genes overlapped in multiple wild versus weedy comparisons, indicating that most of the observed expression changes are due to local adaptation or neutral processes, as opposed to parallel genotypic adaptation to agricultural fields. These results are consistent with an earlier phylogeographic study suggesting that weedy sunflowers have evolved multiple times in different regions of the United States, and further imply that the evolution of weediness in sunflowers mostly involves different sets of genes in different populations.
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1 - Indiana University, Department of Biology and Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, 915 East Third Street,, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
2 - University of British Columbia,, Botany Department, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, 3529-6270 University Blvd, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 1Z4, Canada
3 - Indiana University, Department of Biology and Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, 1001 E Third Street, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA
4 - Univeristy of British Columbia, Botany, 6270 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
Keywords:
local adaptaton
gene expression
weediness
Sunflower
weeds evolution.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Topics
Session: 18
Location: 182/I K Barber
Date: Monday, July 28th, 2008
Time: 2:15 PM
Number: 18004
Abstract ID:697 |
