Chinese ginseng （Panaxginseng） is a medically important herb within Panax and has crucial cultural values in East Asia. As the symbol of traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese ginseng has been used as a herbal remedy...Chinese ginseng （Panaxginseng） is a medically important herb within Panax and has crucial cultural values in East Asia. As the symbol of traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese ginseng has been used as a herbal remedy to restore stamina and capacity in East Asia for thousands of years. To address the evolutionary origin and domestication history of cultivated ginseng, we employed multiple molecular approaches to investigate the genetic structures of cultivated and wild ginseng across their distribution ranges in northeastern Asia. Phylogenetic and population genetic analyses revealed that the four cultivated ginseng landraces, COMMON, BIANTIAO, SHIZHU, and GAOLI （also known as Korean ginseng）, were not domesticated independently and Fusong Town is likely one of the primary domestication centers. In addition, our results from population genetic and epigenetic analyses demonstrated that cultivated ginseng maintained high levels of genetic and epigenetic diversity, but showed distinct cytosine methylation patterns compared with wild ginseng. The patterns of genetic and epigenetic variation revealed by this study have shed light on the domestication history of cultivated ginseng, which may serve as a framework for future genetic improvements.展开更多
基金This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China （31470010 to L.F.L.） and the Program for Introducing Talents to Universities （B07017 to B.L.）.We thank James Schnable and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions, which have greatly improved the manuscript, We also thank Richard Abbott for his pre-reviewing of the manuscript, Joao Sollari Lopes for his help with the popABC analyses, Mingzhou Sun, Yuezhi Pan, Zhenhui Wang, and Peng Peng for their assistance with material collection and data analyses. No conflict of interest declared.
文摘Chinese ginseng （Panaxginseng） is a medically important herb within Panax and has crucial cultural values in East Asia. As the symbol of traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese ginseng has been used as a herbal remedy to restore stamina and capacity in East Asia for thousands of years. To address the evolutionary origin and domestication history of cultivated ginseng, we employed multiple molecular approaches to investigate the genetic structures of cultivated and wild ginseng across their distribution ranges in northeastern Asia. Phylogenetic and population genetic analyses revealed that the four cultivated ginseng landraces, COMMON, BIANTIAO, SHIZHU, and GAOLI （also known as Korean ginseng）, were not domesticated independently and Fusong Town is likely one of the primary domestication centers. In addition, our results from population genetic and epigenetic analyses demonstrated that cultivated ginseng maintained high levels of genetic and epigenetic diversity, but showed distinct cytosine methylation patterns compared with wild ginseng. The patterns of genetic and epigenetic variation revealed by this study have shed light on the domestication history of cultivated ginseng, which may serve as a framework for future genetic improvements.
