title: High light intensity plays a major role in emergence of population level variation in Arabidopsis thaliana along an altitudinal gradient.
abstract: Environmental conditions play an important role in the emergence of genetic variations in natural populations. We identified genome-wide patterns of nucleotide variations in the coding regions of natural Arabidopsis thaliana populations. These populations originated from 700 m to 3400 m a.m.s.l. in the Western Himalaya. Using a pooled RNA-Seq approach, we identified the local and global level population-specific SNPs. The biological functions of the SNP-containing genes were primarily related to the high light intensity prevalent at high-altitude regions. The novel SNPs identified in these genes might have arisen de novo in these populations. In another approach, the FSTs of SNP-containing genes were correlated with the corresponding climatic factors. 'Radiation in the growing season' was the only environmental factor found to be strongly correlated with the gene-level FSTs. In both the approaches, the high light intensity was identified as the primary abiotic stress associated with the variations in these populations. The differential gene expression analysis between field and controlled condition grown plants also showed high light intensity as the primary abiotic stress, particularly for the high altitude populations. Our results provide a genome-wide perspective of nucleotide variations in populations along altitudinal gradient and their putative role in emergence of these variations.
authors.affiliation: Genetics and Molecular Biology Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, 226001, India.
authors.forename: Antariksh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tyagi
authors.affiliation: Genetics and Molecular Biology Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, 226001, India.
authors.forename: Amrita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yadav
authors.affiliation: Genetics and Molecular Biology Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, 226001, India.|Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Anusandhan Bhawan, 2 Rafi Marg, New Delhi, 110 001, India.
authors.forename: Abhinandan Mani
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Tripathi
authors.affiliation: Genetics and Molecular Biology Division, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, 226001, India.|Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Anusandhan Bhawan, 2 Rafi Marg, New Delhi, 110 001, India.
authors.forename: Sribash
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roy
mesh_terms: D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000528:radiation effects*; D002980:Climate; D018744:DNA, Plant / Q000235:genetics; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D017343:Genes, Plant; D014644:Genetic Variation; D018745:Genome, Plant; D005843:Geography; D008027:Light; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012641:Selection, Genetic
chemical_list: D018744:DNA, Plant