title: Transcriptome sequencing of Crucihimalaya himalaica (Brassicaceae) reveals how Arabidopsis close relative adapt to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
abstract: The extreme environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) provides an ideal natural laboratory for studies on adaptive evolution. Few genome/transcriptome based studies have been conducted on how plants adapt to the environments of QTP compared to numerous studies on vertebrates. Crucihimalaya himalaica is a close relative of Arabidopsis with typical QTP distribution, and is hoped to be a new model system to study speciation and ecological adaptation in extreme environment. In this study, we de novo generated a transcriptome sequence of C. himalaica, with a total of 49,438 unigenes. Compared to five relatives, 10,487 orthogroups were shared by all six species, and 4,286 orthogroups contain putative single copy gene. Further analysis identified 487 extremely significantly positively selected genes (PSGs) in C. himalaica transcriptome. Theses PSGs were enriched in functions related to specific adaptation traits, such as response to radiation, DNA repair, nitrogen metabolism, and stabilization of membrane. These functions are responsible for the adaptation of C. himalaica to the high radiation, soil depletion and low temperature environments on QTP. Our findings indicate that C. himalaica has evolved complex strategies for adapting to the extreme environments on QTP and provide novel insights into genetic mechanisms of highland adaptation in plants.
authors.affiliation: School of Agriculture, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10049, China.
authors.forename: Qia
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
authors.forename: Xi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
authors.forename: Yanlong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
authors.forename: Hang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858, USA.
authors.forename: Jinling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Plant Diversity and Biogeography of East Asia, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China.
authors.forename: Ticao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D063990:Gene Ontology; D017343:Genes, Plant; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D018609:Tibet; D059467:Transcriptome