Dramatic Number Variation of R Genes in Solanaceae Species Accounted for by a Few R Gene Subfamilies

PLoS One. 2016 Feb 5;11(2):e0148708. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148708. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Most disease resistance genes encode nucleotide-binding-site (NBS) and leucine-rich-repeat (LRR) domains, and the NBS-LRR encoding genes are often referred to as R genes. Using newly developed approach, 478, 485, 1,194, 1,665, 2,042 and 374 R genes were identified from the genomes of tomato Heinz1706, wild tomato LA716, potato DM1-3, pepper Zunla-1 and wild pepper Chiltepin and tobacco TN90, respectively. The majority of R genes from Solanaceae were grouped into 87 subfamilies, including 16 TIR-NBS-LRR (TNL) and 71 non-TNL subfamilies. Each subfamily was annotated manually, including identification of intron/exon structure and intron phase. Interestingly, TNL subfamilies have similar intron phase patterns, while the non-TNL subfamilies have diverse intron phase due to frequent gain of introns. Prevalent presence/absence polymorphic R gene loci were found among Solanaceae species, and an integrated map with 427 R loci was constructed. The pepper genome (2,042 in Chiltepin) has at least four times of R genes as in tomato (478 in Heinz1706). The high number of R genes in pepper genome is due to the amplification of R genes in a few subfamilies, such as the Rpi-blb2 and BS2 subfamilies. The mechanism underlying the variation of R gene number among different plant genomes is discussed.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • DNA Copy Number Variations*
  • Disease Resistance / genetics*
  • Evolution, Molecular
  • Gene Dosage*
  • Genes, Plant*
  • Genome, Plant
  • Multigene Family*
  • Polymorphism, Genetic
  • Solanaceae / genetics*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China: No. [31221062] and [31272030]; “973” National Key Basic Research Program: no. 2009CB119000; Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China: NO.[2013CFB204]; The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities: No.[2014PY031].