An adaptive teosinte mexicana introgression modulates phosphatidylcholine levels and is associated with maize flowering time
Native Americans domesticated maize ( ssp. ) from lowland teosinte ( ssp. in the warm Mexican southwest and brought it to the highlands of Mexico and South America where it was exposed to lower temperatures that imposed strong selection on flowering time. Phospholipids are important metabolites in p...
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Published in | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 119; no. 27; p. e2100036119 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
National Academy of Sciences
05.07.2022
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Native Americans domesticated maize (
ssp.
) from lowland teosinte
(
ssp.
in the warm Mexican southwest and brought it to the highlands of Mexico and South America where it was exposed to lower temperatures that imposed strong selection on flowering time. Phospholipids are important metabolites in plant responses to low-temperature and phosphorus availability and have been suggested to influence flowering time. Here, we combined linkage mapping with genome scans to identify
(
), a gene that encodes a phospholipase A1 enzyme, as a major driver of phospholipid variation in highland maize. Common garden experiments demonstrated strong genotype-by-environment interactions associated with variation at
with the highland
allele leading to higher fitness in highlands, possibly by hastening flowering. The highland maize
variant resulted in impaired function of the encoded protein due to a polymorphism in a highly conserved sequence. A meta-analysis across HPC1 orthologs indicated a strong association between the identity of the amino acid at this position and optimal growth in prokaryotes. Mutagenesis of
via genome editing validated its role in regulating phospholipid metabolism. Finally, we showed that the highland
allele entered cultivated maize by introgression from the wild highland teosinte
ssp.
and has been maintained in maize breeding lines from the Northern United States, Canada, and Europe. Thus,
introgressed from teosinte
underlies a large metabolic QTL that modulates phosphatidylcholine levels and has an adaptive effect at least in part via induction of early flowering time. |
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Bibliography: | Edited by Detlef Weigel, Max-Planck-Institut fur Biologie Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany; received February 9, 2021; accepted April 8, 2022 1A.C.B., F.R.-Z. and K.A.J.-N., contributed equally to this work. Author contributions: A.C.B., F.R.-Z., K.A.J.-N., R.J.H.S., and R.R.-A. designed research; A.C.B., F.R.-Z., K.A.J.-N., J.M.E.-P., T.M.C., H.S.K., H.D.P., R.L.S., K.T.K., M.R.A.-R., S.P.-L., W.L.S., P.T., Y.-C.C., R.J.H.S., and R.R.-A. performed research; S.E.J., E.D.-A., T.S., D.J., D.C.M., O.F., and E.S.B. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; A.C.B., F.R.-Z., K.A.J.-N., D.J.G., G.M.J., A.K., L.W., S.E.J., J.M.E.-P., T.M.C., H.S.K., H.D.P., R.L.S., K.T.K., W.L.S., P.T., Y.-C.C., D.C.M., D.R., E.S.B., J.R.-I., M.B.H., R.J.H.S., and R.R.-A. analyzed data; and A.C.B., F.R.-Z., K.A.J.-N., A.K., and R.R.-A. wrote the paper. |
ISSN: | 0027-8424 1091-6490 |
DOI: | 10.1073/pnas.2100036119 |