Whole-genome resequencing of Sorghum bicolor and S. bicolor × S. halepense lines provides new insights for improving plant agroecological characteristics

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 5556
• Main Authors: Habyarimana, Ephrem, Gorthy, Sunita, Baloch, Faheem S., Ercisli, Sezai, Chung, Gyuhwa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-04-2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/114; 631/208; 631/337; 631/449; 631/61; Climate adaptation; Climate change; Edible Grain - genetics; Genetic diversity; Genetic improvement; Genomes; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Phenotype; Plant growth; Quantitative Trait Loci; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sequence Analysis, DNA; Single-nucleotide polymorphism; Sorghum; Sorghum - genetics; Sorghum bicolor; Sorghum halepense; Sustainable agriculture; Tropical environments
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-09433-0

Sorghum (
Sorghum bicolor
L. (Moench)) is the world’s fifth economically most important cereal and is a staple particularly in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia. Genetic gains in this crop can benefit from wild relatives such as
Sorghum halepense
. Genome sequences including those from this wild species can boost the study of genome-wide and intraspecific variation for dissecting the genetic basis and improving important traits in sorghum. The whole-genome resequencing carried out in this work on a panel of 172 populations of
S. bicolor
and
S. bicolor
×
S. halepense
(SbxSh) advanced lines generated a total of 567,046,841 SNPs, 91,825,474 indels, 1,532,171 SVs, and 4,973,961 CNVs. Clearly, SbxSh accumulated more variants and mutations with powerful effects on genetic differentiation. A total of 5,548 genes private to SbxSh mapped to biological process GO enrichment terms; 34 of these genes mapped to root system development (GO: 0022622). Two of the root specific genes i.e., ROOT PRIMORDIUM DEFECTIVE 1 (RPD1; GeneID: 8054879) and RETARDED ROOT GROWTH (RRG, GeneID: 8072111), were found to exert direct effect on root growth and development. This is the first report on whole-genome resequencing of a sorghum panel that includes
S. halepense
genome. Mining the private variants and genes of this wild species can provide insights capable of boosting sorghum genetic improvement, particularly the perenniality trait that is compliant with agroecological practices, sustainable agriculture, and climate change resilience.