植物生殖器官适应性进化和可塑性的遗传基础研究

花和果实（内含种子）是被子植物的生殖器官，也是关键创新性状。被子植物的极大繁盛与花和果实的起源与多样性进化密切相关。花器官和果实多样化是适应性进化的结果，在很多物种中已固定，往往成为分类学的经典指标。然而，有些物种其花器官和果实在发育过程中会显著响应环境的改变而形成不同的形态，体现为可塑性。调控器官发育基因的变异或基因表达对不同环境的响应会影响器官的发育过程，即发育的重排，形成不同的形态,并影响适合度。本项目拟以酸浆属、茄属、豆属等为试材，聚焦两组（毛酸浆-野生番茄-栽培番茄、栽培大豆-野大豆）在组内通过多层面的比较研究，揭示花部器官和果实形态多样性适应性进化和可塑性的遗传基础；瞄准转录组变异规律和基因差异表达分析，确定调控器官发育的关键基因，开展功能与进化研究。本项目的研究成果将对理解器官多样性的进化和可塑性变异具重要科学意义，还可服务于作物育种和遗传改良，满足国家粮食安全的重大需求。

Flower and fruit (including seeds inside) are reproductive organs of angiosperms, which are also key innovations during evolution. The tremendous prosperity of angiosperms is tightly associated with the evolution of flower and fruit diversity. The diversification of flower and fruit is a result of adaptive evolution, and their forms are generally fixed for a species and even for a lineage, thus serving as classical markers for taxonomy. However, in some species they could display varied forms in response to environmental alterations, that is, morphological plasticity. The mutation of genes that regulate organ development or the expression alteration of these genes in response to environmental variations could change the developmental course and cause organ developmental repatterning, thus leading to a distinct form. This usually causes corresponding alteration of plant fitness. This proposal, therefore, will use multiple species from genus such as Physalis, Solanum within the Solanaceae, Glycine of Legume etc., and set two main comparative groups (Physalis floridana-Solanum pimpinellifolium-Solanum lycopersicum and Glycine max-Glycine soja) to investigate genetic basis of adaptive evolution and morphological plasticity of plant reproductive organs using multiple levels of comparative approaches including organ developmental course and variation, and differential gene expression in these developmental processes under different environments. This project will aim at to monitoring gene expression alteration at transcriptomic level to identify the differentially expressed genes under different environments, to screen the key genes and to infer function of these genes in regulating flower and fruit development, and to perform molecular and functional evolution analysis of the key regulatory genes functionally characterized in this work, thus revealing genetic basis of flower and fruit diversity, which is of great scientific significance in understanding the evolution of organ diversity. Meanwhile, the understanding of genetic variation underlying the morphological and functional plasticity of reproductive organs could serve crop breeding and genetic improvement, further meeting the major needs of national food security.