Regulatory architecture and variation of gene expression in wild and domesticated barley

作物基因表达调控的种内变异与驯化和适应胁迫条件有关。近年来，谷物基因组学的研究进展使得基因表达的全基因组量化和基因调控变异的解剖成为可能。拟议的研究旨在确定(i)大麦驯化是否伴随着调节变异的丧失，以及（ii）这是否伴随着对环境扰动的响应变异的减少。我们将利用高通量测序技术，量化四种驯化和四种野生基因型的大麦及其F1杂交品种的幼苗组织中等位基因的特异性表达，以研究驯化在多大程度上重塑了大麦的转录组，以及野生和驯化大麦之间的调控变异模式有何不同。我们还将通过比较在冷胁迫和对照条件下生长的幼苗的表达数据，探讨非生物胁迫如何调节驯化和野生大麦的基因表达调控。我们的研究结果将在全基因组水平上揭示顺式和反式效应对大麦基因调控的相对贡献，基因表达的遗传及其与遗传多样性和基因组进化的关系。进一步了解基因表达的调控结构，将有助于在作物改良中合理利用野生种质资源，并有助于阐明大麦杂种优势的分子基础。

Intraspecific variation of gene expression regulation in crop plants has been implicated in both domestication and adaptation to stress conditions. The recent advances in cereal genomics have enabled the genome-wide quantification of gene expression and the dissection of gene regulatory variation in diverse germplasm collections. The proposed research aims at ascertaining (i) whether barley domestication has been accompanied by a loss of regulatory variation and (ii) whether this entailed a concomitant reduction of variability in response to environmental perturbations. We will use high-throughput sequencing to quantify allele-specific expression in seedling tissue of four domesticated and four wild genotypes of barley and their F1 hybrids with a reference genotype to investigate to what extent domestication has reshaped the transcriptome of barley and how patterns of regulatory variation differ between wild and domesticated barley. We will also enquire into how abiotic stress modulates the regulation of gene expression in domesticated and wild barley by comparing expression data from seedlings grown under cold stress and control conditions. Our results will shed light at a genome-wide level on the relative contribution of cis- and trans-effects to gene regulation in barley, the inheritance of gene expression and their relation to genetic diversity and genome evolution. An improved understanding of the regulatory architecture of gene expression will contribute to the informed utilization of wild germplasm in crop improvement and to elucidating the molecular basis of heterosis in barley.