Abstract
Alkaline soils pose an increasing problem for agriculture worldwide, but using stress-tolerant plants as green manure can improve marginal land. Here, we show that the legume Sesbania cannabina is very tolerant to alkaline conditions and, when used as a green manure, substantially improves alkaline soil. To understand genome evolution and the mechanisms of stress tolerance in this allotetraploid legume, we generated the first telomere-to-telomere genome assembly of S. cannabina spanning ∼2,087 Mb. The assembly included all centromeric regions, which contain centromeric satellite repeats, and complete chromosome ends with telomeric characteristics. Further genome analysis distinguished A and B subgenomes, which diverged approximately 7.9 million years ago. Comparative genomic analysis revealed that the chromosome homoeologs underwent large-scale inversion events (>10 Mb) and a significant, transposon-driven size expansion of the chromosome 5A homoeolog. We further identified four specific alkali-induced phosphate transporter genes in S. cannabina; these may function in alkali tolerance by relieving the deficiency in available phosphorus in alkaline soil. Our work highlights the significance of S. cannabina as a green tool to improve marginal lands and sheds light on subgenome evolution and adaptation to alkaline soils.
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Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA28030000), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFD1500503, 2022YFF1003401), Science & Technology Specific Projects in Agricultural High-tech Industrial Demonstration Area of the Yellow River Delta (2022SZX14), the earmarked fund for CARS-Green Manure (CARS-22), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS (Y2022039). We thank Prof.s Keke Yi and Lei Xu from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for their assistance in the Pi transport activity of PHT in yeast experiment.
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Luo, H., Wang, X., You, C. et al. Telomere-to-telomere genome of the allotetraploid legume Sesbania cannabina reveals transposon-driven subgenome divergence and mechanisms of alkaline stress tolerance. Sci. China Life Sci. 67, 149–160 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2463-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-023-2463-y