Biology subjects

Yeh, P.-M.

Publications and source records attributed to Yeh, P.-M..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

The demographic history, genomic variation, and transcontinental genotype-phenotype-environment map of mungbean

The breeding of mungbean, a crucial Asian legume, has been hampered by the lack of genomic resources. The International Mungbean Improvement Network (IMIN) aims to ensure global access to diverse germplasms and genomic resources. Using 780 worldwide wild and cultivated accessions, we report this species most comprehensive (pan)genomic variation, demographic history, and genotype-phenotype-environment map. Despite archaeological evidence of the earliest cultivation in South Asia, present-day wild populations only possess relict traces of shared polymorphisms with cultivars. We showed that parallel losses of black seed coats in two Vigna species were caused by the same mutational mechanism in the same gene. In large-scale cross-continent field trials, we found accessions from distant environments from the trial sites have lower performance, especially in high-heritability and high-yield sites, suggesting future breeding priority in benign conditions on accessions from similar environments. Our comprehensive genomic and trial resources facilitate future breeding success of this essential crop.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2024

How weedy Arabidopsis thaliana dominated the world: ancestral variation and polygenic adaptation

The composition of a species could change with demographic turnovers, where dominant populations quickly expanded and replaced others. However, whether such events have a genetic basis remains to be investigated. Previous studies showed that Arabidopsis thaliana experienced a significant demographic turnover, where "non-relicts" replaced "relicts" throughout Eurasia. Here, we showed that non-relicts have smaller seeds, more seeds per fruit, and a higher germination rate, making them more competitive over relicts. Using a unique population enriching relict alleles while minimizing population structure, we identified candidate loci and showed that such trait divergence was caused by the divergent sorting of multiple ancient haplotypes in a Mendelian gene and joint allele frequency change of polygenes affecting single-trait divergence and multi-trait covariance. This study is one of the few genetic investigations of species-wide demographic turnover, emphasizing the importance of processes different from the much-focused hard selective sweep.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2024

Modular mechanisms of immune priming and growth inhibition mediated by plant effector-triggered immunity

Excessive activation of effector-triggered immunity (ETI) in plants inhibits plant growth and activates cell death. ETI mediated by intracellular Toll/Interleukin-1 receptor/Resistance protein (TIR) nucleotide-binding leucine-rich-repeat receptors (NLRs) involves two partially redundant signalling nodes in Arabidopsis, EDS1-PAD4-ADR1 and EDS1-SAG101-NRG1. Genetic and transcriptomic analyses show that EDS1-PAD4-ADR1 primarily enhances the immune component abundance and is critical for limiting pathogen growth, whereas EDS1-SAG101-NRG1 mainly activates the hypersensitive cell death response (HR) but is dispensable for immune priming. This study enhances our understanding of the distinct contributions of these two signalling modules to ETI and suggests potential strategies for improving disease resistance in crops without compromising yield.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Distinct selection signatures during domestication and improvement in crops: a tale of two genes in mungbean

Domestication and improvement are two crucial processes underlying the evolution of crops. Domestication transformed wild plants into a utilizable form for humans; improvement refined cultivars adapting to distinct environments and local preferences. Using whole-genome re-sequencing of Vigna radiata, we investigated the demographic history and compared the genetic footprints of domestication and improvement. The Asian wild population migrated to Australia at about 50 kya, and domestication happened in Asia about 9 kya selecting for non-shattering pods. The key candidate gene for this trait, VrMYB26a, has lower expression in cultivars, consistent with the reduced polymorphism in the promoter region reflecting hard selective sweep. The determinate stems were later selected as an improvement phenotype and associated with the gene VrDet1. Two ancient haplotypes reducing gene expression exhibit intermediate frequencies in cultivars, consistent with selection favoring independent haplotypes in soft selective sweep. Our results suggest domestication and improvement may leave different genomic signatures of selection, reflecting the fundamental differences in the two processes and highlighting the limitations of genome-scan methods relying on hard selective sweep.

plant biology↗