Genetic variation and population structure of the mushroom Pleurotus ferulae in China inferred from nuclear DNA analysis

To investigate the genetic diversity of an edible fungus Pleurotus ferulae, a total of 89 wild samples collected from six geographical locations in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China and two geographical locations in Italy, were analyzed using three DNA fragments including the translation elongation factor（EF1α）, the second largest subunit of t he RNA polymerase II（RPB2） and the largest subunit of the RNA polymerase II（RPB1）. The results indicated relatively abundant genetic variability in the wild resources of P. ferulae. The analysis of molecular variance（AMOVA） showed that the vast majority of the genetic variation was found within geographical populations. Both the Chinese populations and the Italian populations of P. ferulae displayed a limited genetic differentiation. The degree of differentiation between the Chinese populations and the Italian populations was obviously higher than that between the populations from the same region, and moreover the genetic differentiation among all the tested populations was correlated to the geographical distance. T he phylogeny analyses confirmed that samples from China and Italy belonged to another genetic group separated from Pleurotus eryngii. They were closely related to each other but were clustered according to their geographical origins, which implied the Chinese populations were highly differentiated from the Italian populations because of distance isolation, and the two populations from different regions might be still in the process of allopatric divergence.

Genetic Differentiation and Conservation of 14 Surviving Individuals of Euryodendron excelsum Endemic to China

Random amplification polymorphicDNA(RAPD)markers were used to assess the genetic variations and the evolutionary relationships among all 14 individuals of a critically endangered Euryodendron excelsum(Theaceae)population distributed in Ba Jia Zhen,Yangchun,Guangdong,China.Twenty-three random primers detected 156 sites,out of which 95(60.26%)were polymorphic loci.The number of the observed alleles was 1.6090,and the number of the effective alleles was 1.3471.Nei’s gene diversity was 0.1993,and Shannon index was 0.1534.A relatively high level of genetic variation was identified in E.excelsum.An unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean(UPGMA)tree established from Jaccard similarity coefficients suggested that 14 individuals were clustered into two subgroups and that the No.2 plant was genetically distant from the rest of the individuals.The UPGMA clustering was also supported by a principle components analysis of RAPD phenotypic data.The management and conservation strategy of E.excelsum was proposed based on our results.

Population transcriptomics reveals a potentially positive role of expression diversity in adaptation

While it is widely accepted that genetic diversity determines the potential of adaptation,the role that gene expression variation plays in adaptation remains poorly known.Here we show that gene expression diversity could have played a positive role in the adaptation of Miscanthus lutarioriparius.RNA-seq was conducted for 80 individuals of the species,with half planted in the energy crop domestication site and the other half planted in the control site near native habitats.A leaf reference transcriptome consisting of 18,503 high-quality transcripts was obtained using a pipeline developed for de novo assembling with population RNA-seq data.The population structure and genetic diversity of M.lutarioriparius were estimated based on 30,609 genic single nucleotide polymorphisms.Population expression（Ep） and expression diversity（Ed）were defined to measure the average level and the magnitude of variation of a gene expression in the population,respectively.It was found that expression diversity increased while genetic Resediversity decreased after the species was transplanted from the native habitats to the harsh domestication site,especially for genes involved in abiotic stress resistance,histone methylation,and biomass synthesis under water limitation.The increased expression diversity could have enriched phenotypic variation directly subject to selections in the new environment.