Publications by authors named "Justin Conover"

Premise: A complicating factor in analyzing allopolyploid genomes is the possibility of physical interactions between homoeologous chromosomes during meiosis, resulting in either crossover (homoeologous exchanges) or non-crossover products (homoeologous gene conversion). Homoeologous gene conversion was first described in cotton by comparing SNP patterns in sequences from two diploid progenitors with those from the allopolyploid subgenomes. These analyses, however, did not explicitly consider other evolutionary scenarios that may give rise to similar SNP patterns as homoeologous gene conversion, creating uncertainties about the reality of the inferred gene conversion events.

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Polyploidy is a prominent mechanism of plant speciation and adaptation, yet the mechanistic understandings of duplicated gene regulation remain elusive. Chromatin structure dynamics are suggested to govern gene regulatory control. Here, we characterized genome-wide nucleosome organization and chromatin accessibility in allotetraploid cotton, Gossypium hirsutum (AADD, 2n = 4X = 52), relative to its two diploid parents (AA or DD genome) and their synthetic diploid hybrid (AD), using DNS-seq.

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Article Synopsis
  • Hybridization in plants often leads to allopolyploidy, where nuclear genome doubling may disrupt the interactions between nuclear and organellar genomes, causing genetic incompatibilities.
  • Evolutionary responses to these disruptions include changes in protein sequences to restore interactions, favoring maternal nuclear genes, and adjusting genome copy numbers, but studies show these responses are inconsistent and not universally applicable.
  • The resilience of plant cytonuclear interactions to allopolyploidy may be due to unique genetic features and developmental adaptations, suggesting that such interactions are seldom a major barrier to the establishment of allopolyploid lineages in plant evolution.
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Allotetraploid cotton () species represents a model system for the study of plant polyploidy, molecular evolution, and domestication. Here, chromosome-scale genome sequences were obtained and assembled for two recently described wild species of tetraploid cotton, [(AD), ] and [(AD), ], and one early form of domesticated , race [(AD), ]. Based on phylogenomic analysis, we provide a dated whole-genome level perspective for the evolution of the tetraploid clade and resolved the evolutionary relationships of , , and domesticated .

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Cytonuclear coevolution is a common feature among plants, which coordinates gene expression and protein products between the nucleus and organelles. Consequently, lineage-specific differences may result in incompatibilities between the nucleus and cytoplasm in hybrid taxa. Allopolyploidy is also a common phenomenon in plant evolution.

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Article Synopsis
  • Mitochondrial and plastid functions rely on a balanced expression of proteins from both organellar and nuclear genomes, which can be disrupted in polyploid plants due to nuclear genome doubling.
  • Despite plastid genomes containing less than 1% of the nuclear gene count, they produce the majority of mRNA transcripts (69.9% to 82.3%), while mitochondrial genes contribute a smaller percentage (1.3% to 3.7%) yet maintain higher transcript levels per gene.
  • A study of transcript abundance in polyploid angiosperms reveals that even with cytonuclear imbalances at the RNA level, the coordination of gene expression between nuclear and organellar genomes remains intact, and polyploid plants can
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Whole-genome duplications (WGDs) are a prominent process of diversification in eukaryotes. The genetic and evolutionary forces that WGD imposes on cytoplasmic genomes are not well understood, despite the central role that cytonuclear interactions play in eukaryotic function and fitness. Cellular respiration and photosynthesis depend on successful interaction between the 3,000+ nuclear-encoded proteins destined for the mitochondria or plastids and the gene products of cytoplasmic genomes in multi-subunit complexes such as OXPHOS, organellar ribosomes, Photosystems I and II, and Rubisco.

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Whole-genome duplication (polyploidization) is among the most dramatic mutational processes in nature, so understanding how natural selection differs in polyploids relative to diploids is an important goal. Population genetics theory predicts that recessive deleterious mutations accumulate faster in allopolyploids than diploids due to the masking effect of redundant gene copies, but this prediction is hitherto unconfirmed. Here, we use the cotton genus (Gossypium), which contains seven allopolyploids derived from a single polyploidization event 1-2 Million years ago, to investigate deleterious mutation accumulation.

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The plant genome is partitioned across three distinct subcellular compartments: the nucleus, mitochondria, and plastids. Successful coordination of gene expression among these organellar genomes and the nuclear genome is critical for plant function and fitness. Whole genome duplication (WGD) events in the nucleus have played a major role in the diversification of land plants and are expected to perturb the relative copy number (stoichiometry) of nuclear, mitochondrial, and plastid genomes.

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The two cultivated allopolyploid cottons, and , represent a remarkable example of parallel independent domestication, both involving dramatic morphological transformations under selection from wild perennial plants to annualized row crops. Deep resequencing of 643 newly sampled accessions spanning the wild-to-domesticated continuum of both species, and their allopolyploid relatives, are combined with existing data to resolve species relationships and elucidate multiple aspects of their parallel domestication. It is confirmed that wild and were initially domesticated in the Yucatan Peninsula and NW South America, respectively, and subsequently spread under domestication over 4000-8000 years to encompass most of the American tropics.

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With the rapid rise in availability of high-quality genomes for closely related species, methods for orthology inference that incorporate synteny are increasingly useful. Polyploidy perturbs the 1:1 expected frequencies of orthologs between two species, complicating the identification of orthologs. Here we present a method of ortholog inference, Ploidy-aware Syntenic Orthologous Networks Identified via Collinearity (pSONIC).

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Polyploidy is an evolutionary innovation for many animals and all flowering plants, but its impact on selection and domestication remains elusive. Here we analyze genome evolution and diversification for all five allopolyploid cotton species, including economically important Upland and Pima cottons. Although these polyploid genomes are conserved in gene content and synteny, they have diversified by subgenomic transposon exchanges that equilibrate genome size, evolutionary rate heterogeneities and positive selection between homoeologs within and among lineages.

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The evolution and domestication of cotton is of great interest from both economic and evolutionary standpoints. Although many genetic and genomic resources have been generated for cotton, the genetic underpinnings of the transition from wild to domesticated cotton remain poorly known. Here we generated an intraspecific QTL mapping population specifically targeting domesticated cotton phenotypes.

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One of the extraordinary aspects of plant genome evolution is variation in chromosome number, particularly that among closely related species. This is exemplified by the cotton genus () and its relatives, where most species and genera have a base chromosome number of 13. The two exceptions are sister genera that have n = 12 (the Hawaiian and the East African and Madagascan ).

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Cis and trans regulatory divergence underlies phenotypic and evolutionary diversification. Relatively little is understood about the complexity of regulatory evolution accompanying crop domestication, particularly for polyploid plants. Here, we compare the fiber transcriptomes between wild and domesticated cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) and their reciprocal F hybrids, revealing genome-wide (~15%) and often compensatory cis and trans regulatory changes under divergence and domestication.

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Cotton is an agriculturally important crop. Because of its importance, a genome sequence of a diploid cotton species (, D-genome) was first assembled using Sanger sequencing data in 2012. Improvements to DNA sequencing technology have improved accuracy and correctness of assembled genome sequences.

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We employed phylogenomic methods to study molecular evolutionary processes and phylogeny in the geographically widely dispersed New World diploid cottons (Gossypium, subg. Houzingenia). Whole genome resequencing data (average of 33× genomic coverage) were generated to reassess the phylogenetic history of the subgenus and provide a temporal framework for its diversification.

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Previous research suggests that Gossypium has undergone a 5- to 6-fold multiplication following its divergence from Theobroma. However, the number of events, or where they occurred in the Malvaceae phylogeny remains unknown. We analyzed transcriptomic and genomic data from representatives of eight of the nine Malvaceae subfamilies.

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The diploid D-genome lineage of the Triticum/Aegilops complex has an evolutionary history involving genomic contributions from ancient A- and B/S-genome species. We explored here the possible cytonuclear evolutionary responses to this history of hybridization. Phylogenetic analysis of chloroplast DNAs indicates that the D-genome lineage has a maternal origin of the A-genome or some other closely allied lineage.

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Protein recycling is an essential cellular process involving endocytosis, intracellular trafficking, and exocytosis. In mammalian systems membrane lipids, including cholesterol, sphingolipids, and phospholipids, play a pivotal role in protein recycling. To address this role in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we utilized GFP-Snc1, a v-SNARE protein serving as a fluorescent marker for faithfully reporting the recycling pathway.

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Long-distance insular dispersal is associated with divergence and speciation because of founder effects and strong genetic drift. The cotton tribe (Gossypieae) has experienced multiple transoceanic dispersals, generating an aggregate geographic range that encompasses much of the tropics and subtropics worldwide. Two genera in the Gossypieae, Kokia and Gossypioides, exhibit a remarkable geographic disjunction, being restricted to the Hawaiian Islands and Madagascar/East Africa, respectively.

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