Reference Publication(s)

Kim S, Park J, Yeom SI, Kim YM, Seo E, Kim KT, Kim MS, Lee JM, Cheong K, Shin HS, Kim SB, Han K, Lee J, Park M, Lee HA, Lee HY, Lee Y, Oh S, Lee JH, Choi E, Choi E, Lee SE, Jeon J, Kim H, Choi G, Song H, Lee J, Lee SC, Kwon JK, Lee HY, Koo N, Hong Y, Kim RW, Kang WH, Huh JH, Kang BC, Yang TJ, Lee YH, Bennetzen JL, Choi D. New reference genome sequences of hot pepper reveal the massive evolution of plant disease-resistance genes by retroduplication. Genome Biol. 2017 Nov 1;18(1):210. doi: 10.1186/s13059-017-1341-9.

Abstract

Background: Transposable elements are major evolutionary forces which can cause new genome structure and species diversification. The role of transposable elements in the expansion of nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich-repeat proteins (NLRs), the major disease-resistance gene families, has been unexplored in plants. Results: We report two high-quality de novo genomes (Capsicum baccatum and C. chinense) and an improved reference genome (C. annuum) for peppers. Dynamic genome rearrangements involving translocations among chromosomes 3, 5, and 9 were detected in comparison between C. baccatum and the two other peppers. The amplification of athila LTR-retrotransposons, members of the gypsy superfamily, led to genome expansion in C. baccatum. In-depth genome-wide comparison of genes and repeats unveiled that the copy numbers of NLRs were greatly increased by LTR-retrotransposon-mediated retroduplication. Moreover, retroduplicated NLRs are abundant across the angiosperms and, in most cases, are lineage-specific. Conclusions: Our study reveals that retroduplication has played key roles for the massive emergence of NLR genes including functional disease-resistance genes in pepper plants.

Assembly statistics