TxnEvoClim · Climate adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana through evolution of transcription regulation
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-03-01 → 2024-02-29
- EU contribution
- €186,167
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Climate adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana through evolution of transcription regulation
Our project investigated how differences in gene expression help plants adapt to different climates. Just as animals adapt to their environment, so do plants, and a significant part of this adaptation involves changing the way their genes are expressed, rather than changing the genes themselves. This is especially important as climate changes, potentially affecting the survival and health of plants. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, we studied vast amounts of data on how the plant's genes are expressed in ecotypes adapted to different environments. Our goal was to understand how these changes relate to the climates to which the plants are adapted, discover the genetic changes that drive these adaptations, and determine if we can predict which plants will thrive in new conditions as the climate continues to change. Interestingly, while studying the natural variation in gene expression among Arabidopsis ecotypes, we made a surprising discovery. Many genetic variations that could explain changes in gene expression were found in an unexpected part of the genome. Instead of being located between genes, as expected, this enrichment occurred within the genes themselves. This serendipitous finding shifted the focus of our project to a fundamental question: Do regions within genes contain important regulatory information that affects gene expression? To answer this question, we developed a synthetic system that allowed us to screen tens of thousands of regulatory sequence combinations. The results showed that plants do use regions within transcribed gene regions to control expression. Furthermore, we found that regulatory sequences function differently depending on whether they are inside or outside these regions, in stark contrast to animal regulatory sequences, which are indifferent to their position. These findings are likely to have implications for practices of genetic engineering in plants.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Differences in gene expression play a key role in generating the phenotypic variability needed for adaptation. During evolution, the coding sequence of genes evolves on average much slower than their expression patterns, thus transcriptional regulation can be especially important for rapid adaptation to new environments. Climate is a major factor for plant adaptation, and both the dispersal of a plant from its native origin as well as climate change will often lower its fitness. Thus, understanding how gene expression patterns are modified to facilitate life in adverse climates would shed light on the trade-offs limiting adaptation. Studying how evolution has shaped plant transcriptomes so that these plants can grow in different ecological niches and their potential to adapt to a changing climate requires a large base of natural variability information. This has recently been accumulated for Arabidopsis thaliana, a model for genetic and evolutionary studies. In the proposed project I will use genomic and transcriptomic data from the A. thaliana 1001 Genomes Project, new measurements of gene expression under water deprivation, as well as newly available data on gene-regulation and field fitness, to define how gene expression is shaped by climate and the genetic potential to adapt to new environments. I will address the following: (1) In natural populations, how do gene expression patterns of individuals correspond to the particular adapted climates? (2) What is the genetic basis for the transcript differences and how is it reflected in modifications to the transcriptional network? (3) Can knowledge of climate-transcript variation relationships be predictive of individual strains more likely to survive in a new climate? As climate is changing due to global warming, the understanding of mechanisms by which plants adapt to climate becomes even more important in agriculture and in natural populations, and this project aims to illuminate the role of a central mechanism.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- GREGOR MENDEL INSTITUT FUR MOLEKULARE PFLANZENBIOLOGIE GMBH · WIENCoordinatorAustria
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101028014
- https://www.oeaw.ac.at/gmi/research/research-groups/magnus-nordborg
Data: CORDIS, © European Union