YIA: Identifying the Targets of Selection During Sunflower Domestication

作物从其野生亲缘植物中驯化是对种子休眠和散布、生长形式、开花时间、产量、适口性和营养价值等性状进行强选择的结果。这种选择导致控制这些性状的基因中和周围的遗传变异的特征性减少，从而提供了鉴定农学上重要的基因的手段。本研究旨在鉴定和表征在向日葵驯化和随后的改良过程中经历选择的基因。这项研究的主要目标是根据分子遗传标记和DNA测序的数据，确定具有群体遗传“选择特征”的基因。一个相关的目标是调查这些基因的功能的基础上，他们的基因组位置相对于以前已经映射在向日葵的性状，以及通过分析基因表达。总之，这项研究的结果将提供比目前更详细的了解世界上最重要的油料作物之一的起源和演变。这项工作还将导致为科学界开发永久性遗传资源，包括800个基于基因的简单重复序列标记以及从puplets选择的基因和候选基因中获得的DNA序列数据，这些基因是根据与其他分类群中已知功能基因的相似性确定的。所有数据将通过公共数据库（包括COMPOSITdb（http：//www.example.com）、菊科基因组计划数据库（compgenomics.ucdavis.edu）和GenBank）发布。compositdb.ucdavis.edu最后，这项工作将导致本科生，研究生和博士后研究人员在开发和利用基因组工具，以及分析大型分子数据集的培训

Award AbstractThe domestication of crop plants from their wild relatives is a result of strong selection on traits relating to things such as seed dormancy and dispersal, growth form, flowering time, yield, palatability, and nutritional value. This selection results in a characteristic decrease in genetic variation in and around the genes controlling such traits, thereby providing a means for identifying agronomically important genes. This research is aimed at identifying and characterizing genes that experienced selection during the domestication and subsequent improvement of sunflower. The primary goal of this research is to identify genes that bear the population genetic 'signature of selection' based on data derived from molecular genetic markers and DNA sequencing. A related goal is to investigate the function of these genes on the basis of their genomic locations relative to traits that have previously been mapped in sunflower as well as through analyses of gene expression. Taken together, the results of this research will provide a much more detailed understanding of the origin and evolution of one of the world's most important oilseed crops than is currently available. This work will also result in the development of permanent genetic resources for the scientific community, including 800 gene-based simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers as well as DNA sequence data derived from both putatively selected genes and candidate genes identified on the basis of their similarity to genes of known function from other taxa. All data will be made available upon publication via public databases including COMPOSITdb (http://compositdb.ucdavis.edu), the Compositae Genome Project Database (http://compgenomics.ucdavis.edu), and GenBank. Finally, this work will result in the training of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers in the development and utilization of genomic tools, as well as the analysis of large molecular datasets