Nielsen, E. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2020

Genome-wide analysis clarifies the population genetic structure of wild Gilthead Sea Bream (Sparus aurata)

Gilthead sea bream is an important target for both recreational and commercial fishing in Europe, where it is also one of the most important cultured fish. Its distribution range goes from the Mediterranean to the African and European coasts of the North-East Atlantic. So far, the genetic structure of this species in the wild has been studied with microsatellite DNA, but the pattern of differentiation could not be fully clarified. In this study, almost 1000 wild sea bream from 23 locations in the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic ocean where genotyped at 1159 SNP markers, of which 18 potentially under selection. Neutral markers suggested the presence of a weak subdivision into three genetic clusters: Atlantic, West and East Mediterranean. This last group could be further subdivided into an Ionian/Adriatic and an Aegean group using outlier markers. Seascape analysis suggested that this differentiation was mainly due to difference in salinity, and this was also supported by preliminary genomic functional analysis. These results are of fundamental importance for the development of proper management of this species in the wild and are a first step toward the study of the potential genetic impact of the sea bream aquaculture industry.View Full Text

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Functional Characterization of fer-ts, a ts- FERONIA Mutant Allele That Alters Root Hair Growth

In plants, root hairs undergo a highly-polarized form of cell expansion called tip-growth, in which cell wall deposition is restricted to the root hair apex. In order to identify essential cellular components that might have been missed in earlier genetic screens we identified conditional temperature sensitive (ts) root hair mutants by EMS mutagenesis. Here we describe one of these mutants, fer-ts (feronia-temperature sensitive). Mutant fer-ts seedlings grew normally at normal temperatures (20{degrees}C), but failed to form root hairs at elevated temperatures (30{degrees}C). Map based-cloning and whole genome sequencing revealed that fer-ts resulted from a G41S substitution in the extracellular domain of FERONIA (FER). A functional fluorescent fusion of FER containing the fer-ts mutation localized to plasma membranes, but was subject to enhanced protein turnover at elevated temperatures. While tip-growth was rapidly inhibited by addition of RALF1 peptides in both wild-type and fer-ts mutants at normal temperatures, root elongation of fer-ts seedlings was resistant to added RALF1 peptide at elevated temperatures. Additionally, at elevated temperatures fer-ts seedlings displayed altered ROS accumulation upon auxin treatment and phenocopied constitutive fer mutant responses to a variety of plant hormone treatments. Molecular modeling and sequence comparison with other CrRLK1L receptor family members revealed that the mutated glycine in fer-ts is highly conserved, but is not located in the recently characterized RALF23 and LORELI-LIKE-GLYCOPROTEIN (LLG2) binding domains, perhaps suggesting that fer-ts phenotypes may not be directly due to loss of binding to RALF1 peptides.

plant biology↗