Journal Article

Origin and adaptation to high altitude of Tibetan semi-wild wheat

Hu, Zhaorong, Xin, Mingming, Sun, Qixin, Wang, Zihao, Yu, Kuohai, Peng, Huiru, Appels, Rudi, Ni, Zhongfu, Chen, Yongming, Wang, Xiaobo, Yao, Yingyin, Guan, Panfeng, Song, Wanjun, Guo, Weilong

2020

Overview

Tibetan wheat is grown under environmental constraints at high-altitude conditions, but its underlying adaptation mechanism remains unknown. Here, we present a draft genome sequence of a Tibetan semi-wild wheat ( Triticum aestivum ssp. tibetanum Shao) accession Zang1817 and re-sequence 245 wheat accessions, including world-wide wheat landraces, cultivars as well as Tibetan landraces. We demonstrate that high-altitude environments can trigger extensive reshaping of wheat genomes, and also uncover that Tibetan wheat accessions accumulate high-altitude adapted haplotypes of related genes in response to harsh environmental constraints. Moreover, we find that Tibetan semi-wild wheat is a feral form of Tibetan landrace, and identify two associated loci, including a 0.8-Mb deletion region containing Brt1/2 homologs and a genomic region with TaQ-5A gene, responsible for rachis brittleness during the de-domestication episode. Our study provides confident evidence to support the hypothesis that Tibetan semi-wild wheat is de-domesticated from local landraces, in response to high-altitude extremes. Mechanism of high altitude adaptation of wheat remains unknown. Here, the authors assemble the draft genome of a Tibetan semi-wild wheat accession and resequence 245 wheat accessions to reveal that Tibetan semi-wild wheat has been de-domesticated from local landraces to adapt to high altitude.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 45/23 / 49/91 / 631/208/212/2306 / 631/449/1870 / 631/449/2492 / 631/61/447/8 / Humanities and Social Sciences / multidisciplinary / Science / Science (multidisciplinary)