Molecular evidence for adaptive evolution of drought tolerance in wild cereals

Yuanyuan Wang; Guang Chen; Fanrong Zeng; Zhigang Han; Cheng-Wei Qiu; Meng Zeng; Zujun Yang; Fei Xu; Dezhi Wu; Fenglin Deng; Shengchun Xu; Caspar Chater; Abraham Korol; Sergey Shabala; Feibo Wu; Peter Franks; Eviatar Nevo; Zhong-Hua Chen

doi:10.1111/nph.18560

Molecular evidence for adaptive evolution of drought tolerance in wild cereals

New Phytol. 2023 Jan;237(2):497-514. doi: 10.1111/nph.18560. Epub 2022 Nov 29.

Authors

Yuanyuan Wang^#^{1

2}, Guang Chen^#³, Fanrong Zeng^#⁴, Zhigang Han⁵, Cheng-Wei Qiu¹, Meng Zeng¹, Zujun Yang⁶, Fei Xu⁴, Dezhi Wu¹, Fenglin Deng³, Shengchun Xu⁴, Caspar Chater⁷, Abraham Korol⁸, Sergey Shabala^{9

10}, Feibo Wu¹, Peter Franks¹¹, Eviatar Nevo⁸, Zhong-Hua Chen^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
² Hubei Insect Resources Utilization and Sustainable Pest Management Key Laboratory, College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China.
³ Central Laboratory, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China.
⁴ Collaborative Innovation Centre for Grain Industry, College of Agriculture, Yangtze University, Jingzhou, 434025, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Lin'an, Hangzhou, 311300, China.
⁶ School of Life Science and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan, 611731, China.
⁷ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 3AE, UK.
⁸ Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, 34988384, Haifa, Israel.
⁹ Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7004, Australia.
¹⁰ School of Biological Science, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia.
¹¹ School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
¹² School of Science, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
¹³ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36266957
DOI: 10.1111/nph.18560

Abstract

The considerable drought tolerance of wild cereal crop progenitors has diminished during domestication in the pursuit of higher productivity. Regaining this trait in cereal crops is essential for global food security but requires novel genetic insight. Here, we assessed the molecular evidence for natural variation of drought tolerance in wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum), wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides), and Brachypodium species collected from dry and moist habitats at Evolution Canyon, Israel (ECI). We report that prevailing moist vs dry conditions have differentially shaped the stomatal and photosynthetic traits of these wild cereals in their respective habitats. We present the genomic and transcriptomic evidence accounting for differences, including co-expression gene modules, correlated with physiological traits, and selective sweeps, driven by the xeric site conditions on the African Slope (AS) at ECI. Co-expression gene module 'circadian rhythm' was linked to significant drought-induced delay in flowering time in Brachypodium stacei genotypes. African Slope-specific differentially expressed genes are important in barley drought tolerance, verified by silencing Disease-Related Nonspecific Lipid Transfer 1 (DRN1), Nonphotochemical Quenching 4 (NPQ4), and Brassinosteroid-Responsive Ring-H1 (BRH1). Our results provide new genetic information for the breeding of resilient wheat and barley in a changing global climate with increasingly frequent drought events.

Keywords: Brachypodium sp.; Hordeum spontaneum; Triticum dicoccoides; gene silencing; genome resequencing; stomatal evolution; transcriptome.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Crops, Agricultural / genetics
Drought Resistance
Droughts
Edible Grain*
Hordeum* / genetics
Plant Breeding