Cis-regulation evolution in Arabidopsis

FEI HE; AGUSTÍN ARCE; JULIETTE DE MEAUX

Viena

Congreso; Annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution; 2015

Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution

To understand the genetic basis for adaptation is still a challenge. Genetic analysis of gene expression variation may contribute to a better understanding of its role adaptive traits for fitness. Cis-regulatory DNA has been suspected to play a pre-eminent role in adaptive evolution, but understanding the role of cis-regulatory mutations in gene expression divergence first requires an accurate analysis of the functional differences associated with these regions. The monitoring of allele-specific expression in F1 hybrid becomes an efficient method to detect cis regulation mutations. The ecological and phenotypic diversity has been shown in Arabidopsis genus. Here, we genome-widely draw the distribution of cis-regulatory differences in different hybrids of A. thaliana, A. halleri and A. lyrata in response to cold, drought and normal growth conditions by RNA-seq. Around two third of genes display ASE preferentially expressed the allele of A. lyrata or A. halleri. The derived cis change between species reflects their ecological diversity. A. lyrata shows more tolerant to drought and A. halleri shows tolerant to high heavy metal concentrations. In consistency, cis-regulatory changes derived in the A. lyrata lineage were enriched in proline transporter activities to maintain the osmotic pressure in stress, and cis-regulatory changes derived in the A. halleri lineage were significantly in excess among genes involved in metal ion transmembrane transporter activity. This finding provides the proof of selection on speciation during the adaptation.