Summary
Tea is the world's widely consumed nonalcohol beverage with essential economic and health benefits. Confronted with the increasing large‐scale omics‐data set particularly the genome sequence ...released in tea plant, the construction of a comprehensive knowledgebase is urgently needed to facilitate the utilization of these data sets towards molecular breeding. We hereby present the first integrative and specially designed web‐accessible database, Tea Plant Information Archive (TPIA; http://tpia.teaplant.org). The current release of TPIA employs the comprehensively annotated tea plant genome as framework and incorporates with abundant well‐organized transcriptomes, gene expressions (across species, tissues and stresses), orthologs and characteristic metabolites determining tea quality. It also hosts massive transcription factors, polymorphic simple sequence repeats, single nucleotide polymorphisms, correlations, manually curated functional genes and globally collected germplasm information. A variety of versatile analytic tools (e.g. JBrowse, blast, enrichment analysis, etc.) are established helping users to perform further comparative, evolutionary and functional analysis. We show a case application of TPIA that provides novel and interesting insights into the phytochemical content variation of section Thea of genus Camellia under a well‐resolved phylogenetic framework. The constructed knowledgebase of tea plant will serve as a central gateway for global tea community to better understand the tea plant biology that largely benefits the whole tea industry.
Abstract
Tea is among the world’s most widely consumed non-alcoholic beverages and possesses enormous economic, health, and cultural values. It is produced from the cured leaves of tea plants, which ...are important evergreen crops globally cultivated in over 50 countries. Along with recent innovations and advances in biotechnologies, great progress in tea plant genomics and genetics has been achieved, which has facilitated our understanding of the molecular mechanisms of tea quality and the evolution of the tea plant genome. In this review, we briefly summarize the achievements of the past two decades, which primarily include diverse genome and transcriptome sequencing projects, gene discovery and regulation studies, investigation of the epigenetics and noncoding RNAs, origin and domestication, phylogenetics and germplasm utilization of tea plant as well as newly developed tools/platforms. We also present perspectives and possible challenges for future functional genomic studies that will contribute to the acceleration of breeding programs in tea plants.
Tea is the world＇s oldest and most popular caffeine-containing beverage with immense economic, medicinal, and cultural importance. Here, we present the first high-quality nucleotide sequence of the ...repeat-rich （80.9%）, 3.02-Gb genome of the cultivated tea tree Camellia sinensis. We show that an extraordinarily large genome size of tea tree is resulted from the slow, steady, and long-term amplification of a few LTR retrotransposon families. In addition to a recent whole-genome duplication event, lineage-specific expansions of genes associated with flavonoid metabolic biosynthesis were discovered, which enhance catechin production, terpene enzyme activation, and stress tolerance, important features for tea flavor and adaptation. We demonstrate an independent and rapid evolution of the tea caffeine synthesis pathway relative to cacao and coffee. A comparative study among 25 Camellia species revealed that higher expression levels of most flavonoid- and caffeinebut not theanine-related genes contribute to the increased production of catechins and caffeine and thus enhance tea-processing suitability and tea quality. These novel findings pave the way for further metabolomic and functional genomic refinement of characteristic biosynthesis pathways and will help develop a more diversified set of tea flavors that would eventually satisfy and attract more tea drinkers worldwide.
Polyploidy, or whole-genome duplication (WGD), serves as a key innovation in plant evolution and is an important genomic feature for all eukaryotes. Neopolyploids have to overcome difficulties in ...meiosis, genomic alterations, changes of gene expression, and epigenomic reorganization. However, the underlying mechanisms for these processes are poorly understood. One of the most interesting aspects is that genome doubling events increase the dosage of all genes. Unlike allopolyploids entangled by both hybridization and polyploidization, autopolyploids, especially artificial lines, in relatively uniform genetic background offer a model system to understand mechanisms of genome-dosage effects. To investigate DNA methylation effects in response to WGD rather than hybridization, we produced autotetraploid rice with its diploid donor,Oryza sativassp.indicacv. Aijiaonante, both of which were independently self-pollinated over 48 generations, and generated and compared their comprehensive transcriptomes, base pair-resolution methylomes, and siRNAomes. DNA methylation variation of transposable elements (TEs) was observed as widespread in autotetraploid rice, in which hypermethylation of class II DNA transposons was predominantly noted in CHG and CHH contexts. This was accompanied by changes of 24-nt siRNA abundance, indicating the role of the RNA-directed DNA methylation pathway. Our results showed that the increased methylation state of class II TEs may suppress the expression of neighboring genes in autotetraploid rice that has obtained double alleles, leading to no significant differences in transcriptome alterations for most genes from its diploid donor. Collectively, our findings suggest that chromosome doubling induces methylation variation in TEs that affect gene expression and may become a “genome shock” response factor to help neoautopolyploids adapt to genome-dosage effects.
Polyploidization is a major driver of speciation and its importance to plant evolution has been well recognized. Bamboos comprise one diploid herbaceous and three polyploid woody lineages, and are ...members of the only major subfamily in grasses that diversified in forests, with the woody members having a tree-like lignified culm. In this study, we generated four draft genome assemblies of major bamboo lineages with three different ploidy levels (diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid). We also constructed a high-density genetic linkage map for a hexaploid species of bamboo, and used a linkage-map-based strategy for genome assembly and identification of subgenomes in polyploids. Further phylogenomic analyses using a large dataset of syntenic genes with expected copies based on ploidy levels revealed that woody bamboos originated subsequent to the divergence of the herbaceous bamboo lineage, and experienced complex reticulate evolution through three independent allopolyploid events involving four extinct diploid ancestors. A shared but distinct subgenome was identified in all polyploid forms, and the progenitor of this subgenome could have been critical in ancient polyploidizations and the origin of woody bamboos. Important genetic clues to the unique flowering behavior and woody trait in bamboos were also found. Taken together, our study provides significant insights into ancient reticulate evolution at the subgenome level in the absence of extant donor species, and offers a potential model scenario for broad-scale study of angiosperm origination by allopolyploidization.
Hybridization and polyploidization are major drivers of plant evolution. This study reveals an ancient reticulate origin of bamboos without extant donor species, representing a potential model case for angiosperm origination by allopolyploidization. Together with novel insights into the woody trait and unique flowering behavior of bamboos, these findings will greatly enhance further research into the model plant family Poaceae.
Rapidly driven by the need for developing sustainable sources of nutritionally important fatty acids and the rising concerns about environmental impacts after using fossil oil, oil-plants have ...received increasing awareness nowadays. As an important oil-rich plant in China, Camellia oleifera has played a vital role in providing nutritional applications, biofuel productions and chemical feedstocks. However, the lack of C. oleifera genome sequences and little genetic information have largely hampered the urgent needs for efficient utilization of the abundant germplasms towards modern breeding efforts of this woody oil-plant.
Here, using the 454 GS-FLX sequencing platform, we generated approximately 600,000 RNA-Seq reads from four tissues of C. oleifera. These reads were trimmed and assembled into 104,842 non-redundant putative transcripts with a total length of ∼38.9 Mb, representing more than 218-fold of all the C. oleifera sequences currently deposited in the GenBank (as of March 2014). Based on the BLAST similarity searches, nearly 42.6% transcripts could be annotated with known genes, conserved domains, or Gene Ontology (GO) terms. Comparisons with the cultivated tea tree, C. sinensis, identified 3,022 pairs of orthologs, of which 211 exhibited the evidence under positive selection. Pathway analysis detected the majority of genes potentially related to lipid metabolism. Evolutionary analysis of omega-6 fatty acid desaturase (FAD2) genes among 20 oil-plants unexpectedly suggests that a parallel evolution may occur between C. oleifera and Olea oleifera. Additionally, more than 2,300 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and 20,200 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected in the C. oleifera transcriptome.
The generated transcriptome represents a considerable increase in the number of sequences deposited in the public databases, providing an unprecedented opportunity to discover all related-genes associated with lipid metabolic pathway in C. oleifera. It will greatly enhance the generation of new varieties of C. oleifera with increased yields and high quality.
To understand the potential genetic basis of highland adaptation of fungal pathogenicity, we present here the ~116 Mb de novo assembled high-quality genome of Ophiocordyceps sinensis endemic to the ...Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Compared with other plain-dwelling fungi, we find about 3.4-fold inflation of the O. sinensis genome due to a rapid amplification of long terminal repeat retrotransposons that occurred ~38 million years ago in concert with the uplift of the plateau. We also observe massive removal of thousands of genes related to the transport process and energy metabolism. O. sinensis displays considerable lineage-specific expansion of gene families functionally enriched in the adaptability of low-temperature of cold tolerance, fungal pathogenicity and specialized host infection. We detect signals of positive selection for genes involved in peroxidase and hypoxia to enable its highland adaptation. Resequencing and analyzing 31 whole genomes of O. sinensis, representing nearly all of its geographic range, exhibits latitude-based population divergence and nature selection for population inhabitation towards higher altitudes on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
Mushroom-forming fungi are complex multicellular organisms that form the basis of a large industry, yet, our understanding of the mechanisms of mushroom development and its responses to various ...stresses remains limited. The winter mushroom (Flammulina filiformis) is cultivated at a large commercial scale in East Asia and is a species with a preference for low temperatures. This study investigated fruiting body development in F. filiformis by comparing transcriptomes of 4 developmental stages, and compared the developmental genes to a 200-genome dataset to identify conserved genes involved in fruiting body development, and examined the response of heat sensitive and -resistant strains to heat stress. Our data revealed widely conserved genes involved in primordium development of F. filiformis, many of which originated before the emergence of the Agaricomycetes, indicating co-option for complex multicellularity during evolution. We also revealed several notable fruiting-specific genes, including the genes with conserved stipe-specific expression patterns and the others which related to sexual development, water absorption, basidium formation and sporulation, among others. Comparative analysis revealed that heat stress induced more genes in the heat resistant strain (M1) than in the heat sensitive one (XR). Of particular importance are the hsp70, hsp90 and fes1 genes, which may facilitate the adjustment to heat stress in the early stages of fruiting body development. These data highlighted novel genes involved in complex multicellular development in fungi and aid further studies on gene function and efforts to improve the productivity and heat tolerance in mushroom-forming fungi.
Dear Editor Panax notoginseng （Burk） F.H. Chen, belonging to the genus Panax （Araliaceae）, is one of the most highly valued medicinal plants in the world. The dried root of this plant, known as ...＂Sanchi＂, is one of the most commonly used traditional Chinese medicines and has been used as a top-class tonic for more than 2000 years.
Polyamines (PAs) in plant play a critical role in growth and development and in response to environmental stress. Polyamine oxidase (PAO) is a flavin adenine dinucleotide dependent enzyme that plays ...a major role in PA catabolism. For the first time,
PAO
genes in tea plant were screened for the whole genome-wide and seven
CsPAO
genes were identified, which were named
CsPAO1-7
. Phylogenetic tree analysis revealed seven CsPAO protein sequences classed into three groups, including clade I, III, and IV. Compared with other plants, the tea plant lacked clade II members. Genetic structure and tissue specific expression analysis showed that there were significant differences among members of the
CsPAO
gene family. Among members of the
CsPAOs
family,
CsPAO4
and
CsPAO5
contain more introns and are highly expressed in various organizations.
CsPAO1
,
CsPAO4
, and
CsPAO5
genes were cloned and expressed heterologously to verify theirs function. Heat map showed high response of
CsPAO5
to drought stress, while
CsPAO
1 and
CsPAO
2 were sensitive to changes in nitrogen nutrition. Furthermore, exogenous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment indicated that the expression of most
CsPAO
genes in roots and leaves was significantly induced. In the root, Spm content increased significantly, while Put and Spd content decreased, suggesting that ABA has great influence on the biosynthesis of PAs. Anaerobic treatment of picked tea leaves showed that the decomposition of PAs was promoted to a certain extent. The above data help to clarify the role of
CsPAO
in response abiotic and nitrogen nutritional stresses in tea plants, and provide a reference perspective for the potential influence of PAs on the tea processing quality.
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