The Genome and Gene Editing System of Sea Barleygrass Provide A Novel Platform for Cereal Domestication and Stress Tolerance Studies

Author(s)

Liuhui Kuang
Qiufang Shen
Liyang Chen
Lingzhen Ye
Tao Yan
Zhong-Hua Chen
Robbie Waugh
Qi Li
Lu Huang
Shengguan Cai
Liangbo Fu
Pengwei Xing
Kai Wang
Jiari Shao
Feibo Wu
Lixi Jiang
Dezhi Wu, University of South CarolinaFollow
Guoping Zhang

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The tribe Triticeae provides important staple cereal crops and contains elite wild species with wide genetic diversity and high tolerance to abiotic stresses. Sea barleygrass (Hordeum marinum Huds.), a wild Triticeae species, thrives in saline marshlands and is well known for its high tolerance to salinity and waterlogging. Here, a 3.82-Gb high-quality reference genome of sea barleygrass is assembled de novo, with 3.69 Gb (96.8%) of its sequences anchored onto seven chromosomes. In total, 41 045 high-confidence (HC) genes are annotated by homology, de novo prediction, and transcriptome analysis. Phylogenetics, non-synonymous/synonymous mutation ratios (Ka/Ks), and transcriptomic and functional analyses provide genetic evidence for the divergence in morphology and salt tolerance among sea barleygrass, barley, and wheat. The large variation in post-domestication genes (e.g. IPA1 and MOC1) may cause interspecies differences in plant morphology. The extremely high salt tolerance of sea barleygrass is mainly attributed to low Na uptake and root-to-shoot translocation, which are mainly controlled by SOS1, HKT, and NHX transporters. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing systems were developed for sea barleygrass to promote its utilization for exploration and functional studies of hub genes and for the genetic improvement of cereal crops.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xplc.2022.100333

Publication Info

Plant Communications, Volume 3, Issue 5, 2022, pages 100333-.

APA Citation

Kuang, L., Shen, Q., Chen, L., Ye, L., Yan, T., Chen, Z.-H., Waugh, R., Li, Q., Huang, L., Cai, S., Fu, L., Xing, P., Wang, K., Shao, J., Wu, F., Jiang, L., Wu, D., & Zhang, G. (2022). The genome and gene editing system of sea barleygrass provide a novel platform for cereal domestication and stress tolerance studies. Plant Communications, 3(5), 100333. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xplc.2022.100333

Rights

©2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).