Genome structure and evolutionary history of frankincense producing Boswellia sacra

Abdul Latif Khan; Ahmed Al-Harrasi; Jin-Peng Wang; Sajjad Asaf; Jean-Jack M Riethoven; Tariq Shehzad; Chia-Sin Liew; Xiao-Ming Song; Daniel P Schachtman; Chao Liu; Ji-Gao Yu; Zhi-Kang Zhang; Fan-Bo Meng; Jia-Qing Yuan; Chen-Dan Wei; He Guo; Xuewen Wang; Ahmed Al-Rawahi; In-Jung Lee; Jeffrey L Bennetzen; Xi-Yin Wang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104574

Genome structure and evolutionary history of frankincense producing Boswellia sacra

iScience. 2022 Jun 10;25(7):104574. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104574. eCollection 2022 Jul 15.

Authors

Abdul Latif Khan¹, Ahmed Al-Harrasi², Jin-Peng Wang³, Sajjad Asaf², Jean-Jack M Riethoven⁴, Tariq Shehzad^{5

6}, Chia-Sin Liew⁴, Xiao-Ming Song³, Daniel P Schachtman^{7

8}, Chao Liu³, Ji-Gao Yu³, Zhi-Kang Zhang³, Fan-Bo Meng³, Jia-Qing Yuan³, Chen-Dan Wei³, He Guo³, Xuewen Wang⁹, Ahmed Al-Rawahi², In-Jung Lee¹⁰, Jeffrey L Bennetzen⁹, Xi-Yin Wang³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Engineering Technology, College of Technology, University of Houston, Sugar Land, TX, 77479, USA.
² Natural and Medical Sciences Research Center, University of Nizwa, Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman.
³ School of Life Sciences, North China University of Science and Technology, Caofeidian District, Tangshan, Hebei, China.
⁴ The Nebraska Center for Biotechnology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA.
⁵ Plant Genome Mapping Lab, Center for Applied Genetic Technologies, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
⁶ Syngenta Crop Protection LLC, Bioinformatics and Genotyping, Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, USA.
⁷ Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
⁸ Center for Plant Science Innovation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE 68588, USA.
⁹ Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
¹⁰ School of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea.

Abstract

Boswellia sacra Flueck (family Burseraceae) tree is wounded to produce frankincense. We report its de novo assembled genome (667.8 Mb) comprising 18,564 high-confidence protein-encoding genes. Comparing conserved single-copy genes across eudicots suggest >97% gene space assembly of B. sacra genome. Evolutionary history shows B. sacra gene-duplications derived from recent paralogous events and retained from ancient hexaploidy shared with other eudicots. The genome indicated a major expansion of Gypsy retroelements in last 2 million years. The B. sacra genetic diversity showed four clades intermixed with a primary genotype-dominating most resin-productive trees. Further, the stem transcriptome revealed that wounding concurrently activates phytohormones signaling, cell wall fortification, and resin terpenoid biosynthesis pathways leading to the synthesis of boswellic acid-a key chemotaxonomic marker of Boswellia. The sequence datasets reported here will serve as a foundation to investigate the genetic determinants of frankincense and other resin-producing species in Burseraceae.

Keywords: Evolutionary biology; Genomics; Plant biology.