YIA: Identifying the Targets of Selection During Sunflower Domestication

野生近缘作物的驯化是对种子休眠和散布、生长形态、开花时间、产量、适口性和营养价值等性状进行强烈选择的结果。这种选择导致控制这些性状的基因及其周围的遗传变异的特征性减少，从而提供了一种识别农艺重要基因的手段。本研究旨在鉴定向日葵在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来自分子遗传标记和DNA测序的数据来识别具有群体遗传选择签名的基因。一个相关的目标是根据这些基因相对于以前在向日葵中定位的性状的基因组位置以及通过基因表达分析来研究这些基因的功能。总而言之，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籽作物之一的起源和进化。这项工作还将为科学界开发永久性遗传资源，包括800个基于基因的简单序列重复(SSR)标记以及DNA序列数据，这些数据来自假定选择的基因和候选基因，这些基因是根据它们与其他类群已知功能基因的相似性而确定的。所有数据一经公布，将通过包括COMPOSITdb(http://compositdb.ucdavis.edu)，)、菊科基因组项目数据库(http://compgenomics.ucdavis.edu)，和基因库)在内的公共数据库提供。最后，这项工作将导致本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员在基因组工具的开发和利用以及大分子数据集的分析方面的培训

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