Syntenic relationships between Medicago truncatula and Arabidopsis reveal extensive divergence of genome organization.
Arabidopsis and Medicago truncatula represent sister clades within the dicot subclass Rosidae. We used genetic map-based and bacterial artificial chromosome sequence-based approaches to estimate the level of synteny between the genomes of these model plant species. Mapping of 82 tentative orthologous gene pairs reveals a lack of extended macrosynteny between the two genomes, although marker collinearity is frequently observed over small genetic intervals. Divergence estimates based on non-synonymous nucleotide substitutions suggest that a majority of the genes under analysis have experienced duplication in Arabidopsis subsequent to divergence of the two genomes, potentially confounding synteny analysis. Moreover, in cases of localized synteny, genetically linked loci in M. truncatula often share multiple points of synteny with Arabidopsis; this latter observation is consistent with the large number of segmental duplications that compose the Arabidopsis genome. More detailed analysis, based on complete sequencing and annotation of three M. truncatula bacterial artificial chromosome contigs suggests that the two genomes are related by networks of microsynteny that are often highly degenerate. In some cases, the erosion of microsynteny could be ascribed to the selective gene loss from duplicated loci, whereas in other cases, it is due to the absence of close homologs of M. truncatula genes in Arabidopsis.
Zhu
Hongyan
H
Department of Plant Pathology, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA.
Kim
Dong-Jin
DJ
Baek
Jong-Min
JM
Choi
Hong-Kyu
HK
Ellis
Leland C
LC
Küester
Helge
H
McCombie
W Richard
WR
Peng
Hui-Mei
HM
Cook
Douglas R
DR
D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics*; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D032461:Chromosomes, Plant / Q000235:genetics*; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D020440:Gene Duplication; D023061:Gene Order / Q000235:genetics; D008040:Genetic Linkage / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D018745:Genome, Plant; D029902:Medicago / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D013045:Species Specificity; D026801:Synteny