title: Evolutionary trajectories of duplicated FT homologues and their roles in soybean domestication.
abstract: To clarify the molecular bases of flowering time evolution in crop domestication, here we investigate the evolutionary fates of a set of four recently duplicated genes in soybean: FT2a, FT2b, FT2c and FT2d that are homologues of the floral inducer FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT). While FT2a maintained the flowering inducer function, other genes went through contrasting evolutionary paths. FT2b evolved attenuated expression potentially associated with a transposon insertion in the upstream intergenic region, while FT2c and FT2d obtained a transposon insertion and structural rearrangement, respectively. In contrast to FT2b and FT2d whose mutational events occurred before the separation of G. max and G. soja, the evolution of FT2c is a G. max lineage specific event. The FT2c allele carrying a transposon insertion is nearly fixed in soybean landraces and differentiates domesticated soybean from wild soybean, indicating that this allele spread at the early stage of soybean domestication. The domesticated allele causes later flowering than the wild allele under short day and exhibits a signature of selection. These findings suggest that FT2c may have underpinned the evolution of photoperiodic flowering regulation in soybean domestication and highlight the evolutionary dynamics of this agronomically important gene family.
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Faqiang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Eric J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Sedivy
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
authors.forename: William Brian
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Price
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Waseem
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Haider
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1201 W. Gregory Dr., Urbana, IL, 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Yoshie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hanzawa
mesh_terms: D000071278:Domestication; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D035264:Flowers / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D020440:Gene Duplication / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013025:Glycine max / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins
keywords: 
  Glycine max
  ; 
  Glycine soja
  ; FLOWERING LOCUS T; convergent evolution; domestication; flowering; parallel evolution