The genetic architecture of trait covariation in Populus euphratica, a desert tree

Frontiers in Plant Science

Plant Science

Huiying Gong¹  Dengcheng Yang¹  Meixia Ye¹  Rongling Wu²  Xiao-Yu Zhang³  Kaiyan Lu³  Xueshun Wang⁴  Qing Fang⁵ 

[1] College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Center for Computational Biology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China;College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Center for Computational Biology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China;Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;College of Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China;Department of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, Guangzhou Xinhua University, Guangzhou, China;Faculty of Science, Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan;

关键词: Populus euphratica;    differential equation;    cooperation-competition;    QTL mapping;    genetic regulatory network;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpls.2023.1149879

 received in 2023-01-23, accepted in 2023-03-20,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

IntroductionThe cooperative strategy of phenotypic traits during the growth of plants reflects how plants allocate photosynthesis products, which is the most favorable decision for them to optimize growth, survival, and reproduction response to changing environment. Up to now, we still know little about why plants make such decision from the perspective of biological genetic mechanisms.MethodsIn this study, we construct an analytical mapping framework to explore the genetic mechanism regulating the interaction of two complex traits. The framework describes the dynamic growth of two traits and their interaction as Differential Interaction Regulatory Equations (DIRE), then DIRE is embedded into QTL mapping model to identify the key quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that regulate this interaction and clarify the genetic effect, genetic contribution and genetic network structure of these key QTLs. Computer simulation experiment proves the reliability and practicability of our framework.ResultsIn order to verify that our framework is universal and flexible, we applied it to two sets of data from Populus euphratica, namely, aboveground stem length - underground taproot length, underground root number - underground root length, which represent relationships of phenotypic traits in two spatial dimensions of plant architecture. The analytical result shows that our model is well applicable to datasets of two dimensions.DiscussionOur model helps to better illustrate the cooperation-competition patterns between phenotypic traits, and understand the decisions that plants make in a specific environment that are most conducive to their growth from the genetic perspective.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
Copyright © 2023 Lu, Wang, Gong, Yang, Ye, Fang, Zhang and Wu