Prof. Cheng Feng’s group of Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of CAAS has assembled the genome of white lupin, revealed the evolution regularity of paleo-polyploidy and low-phosphorus adaptation characteristics in collaboration with Prof. Xu Weifeng’s group of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University. The related research was published online in Nature Communications on February 26, 2020.

Lupinus Albus (2n = 50) is a model plant in the research of low phosphorus tolerance. It could produce a large number of cluster roots to secrete protons, organic acids, acid phosphatases etc for utilizing solid state phosphorus efficiently. In this study, Cheng's team completed the lupin genome evolution and comparative genome analysis. It was found that the white lupin experienced a whole genome triploidy event similar to that of allopolyploid species as Brassica, in which a “two-step” polyploidization process resulted in the sub-genome dominance phenomenon. The ancient diploid ancestor of white lupin was deduced and sub-genome dominance was observed, which suggested that the characteristic of high use efficiency of phosphorus was developed along with gene expansion in related regulatory pathways.

Prof. Cheng Feng’s group has engaged in the paleo-polyploidy evolution of cruciferous vegetables and its relationships with the formation of important agronomic traits for many years. This study successfully revealed the relationship between paleo-polyploid gene expansion and evolution of low-phosphorus adaptation, which was significant for the research on polyploidy of crop genome and the formation of complex agronomic traits.

This study is the result of a joint collaboration between two teams. Prof. Cheng Feng, Prof. Xu Weifeng, Doctor Zhang Qian and Doctor Xia Tianyu from Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University are the corresponding authors of this paper.

More details can be found at the link below:

http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-14891-z

By Li Xing (xzdlixing@126.com)