@article{435a68e85e14445ebb8f85c51171f87d,
title = "Positive selection and heat-response transcriptomes reveal adaptive features of the Brassicaceae desert model, Anastatica hierochuntica",
abstract = "Plant adaptation to a desert environment and its endemic heat stress is poorly understood at the molecular level. The naturally heat-tolerant Brassicaceae species Anastatica hierochuntica is an ideal extremophyte model to identify genetic adaptations that have evolved to allow plants to tolerate heat stress and thrive in deserts. We generated an A. hierochuntica reference transcriptome and identified extremophyte adaptations by comparing Arabidopsis thaliana and A. hierochuntica transcriptome responses to heat, and detecting positively selected genes in A. hierochuntica. The two species exhibit similar transcriptome adjustment in response to heat and the A. hierochuntica transcriptome does not exist in a constitutive heat {\textquoteleft}stress-ready{\textquoteright} state. Furthermore, the A. hierochuntica global transcriptome as well as heat-responsive orthologs, display a lower basal and higher heat-induced expression than in A. thaliana. Genes positively selected in multiple extremophytes are associated with stomatal opening, nutrient acquisition, and UV-B induced DNA repair while those unique to A. hierochuntica are consistent with its photoperiod-insensitive, early-flowering phenotype. We suggest that evolution of a flexible transcriptome confers the ability to quickly react to extreme diurnal temperature fluctuations characteristic of a desert environment while positive selection of genes involved in stress tolerance and early flowering could facilitate an opportunistic desert lifestyle.",
keywords = "Anastatica hierochuntica, Brassicaceae, adaptation, desert species, extremophyte, heat stress, positive selection, transcriptome",
author = "Gil Eshel and Nick Duppen and Guannan Wang and Oh, {Dong Ha} and Yana Kazachkova and Pawel Herzyk and Anna Amtmann and Michal Gordon and Vered Chalifa-Caspi and Oscar, {Michelle Arland} and Shirli Bar-David and Amy Marshall-Colon and Maheshi Dassanayake and Simon Barak",
note = "The authors would like to dedicate this article to Dr Dirk Hincha and Prof. Hillel Fromm, who passed away in 2020. Great plant scientists, colleagues and friends. They will be sorely missed. The authors thank Ruth Shaked and Beery Yaakov for their dedicated technical support. The authors are also grateful to Patrick Barko from the University of Illinois Urbana\u2010Champaign for excellent aid with WGCNA, and to Amram Eshel from Tel Aviv University for help with net photosynthesis measurements. The authors express their appreciation to Alvaro Hernandez and all the team at the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, University of Illinois Urbana\u2010Champaign for superb sequencing services. The authors are grateful to Julie Galbraith (Glasgow Polyomics, UK) for preparing libraries and carrying out the Illumina RNA\u2010Seq for the reference transcriptome. This work was supported by the Goldinger Trust Jewish Fund for the Future, the Koshland Foundation for Support of Interdisciplinary Research in Combatting Desertification, and the I\u2010CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee to SB, National Science Foundation, USA award MCB 1616827, Next\u2010Generation BioGreen21 Program of Republic of Korea (PJ01317301) to MD, NSF\u2010BSF\u2010IOS\u2010EDGE (National Science Foundation, USA and The United States\u2010Israel Binational Science Foundation) 1923589/2019610 to MD and SB, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant (BBSRC; BB/R019894/1) to AA and PH. GE was supported by an Israel President Fellowship for Excellence and Scientific Innovation award, ND was supported by a Ben\u2010Gurion University, Kreitman School for Advanced Research Studies High\u2010tech, Bio\u2010tech and Chemo\u2010tech award, and GW was supported by an Economic Development Assistantship award from Louisiana State University. The authors also acknowledge the LSU High Performance Computing Services, and the BGU Bioinformatics Core Facility for providing computational resources needed for data analyses. The authors would like to dedicate this article to Dr Dirk Hincha and Prof. Hillel Fromm, who passed away in 2020. Great plant scientists, colleagues and friends. They will be sorely missed. The authors thank Ruth Shaked and Beery Yaakov for their dedicated technical support. The authors are also grateful to Patrick Barko from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for excellent aid with WGCNA, and to Amram Eshel from Tel Aviv University for help with net photosynthesis measurements. The authors express their appreciation to Alvaro Hernandez and all the team at the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for superb sequencing services. The authors are grateful to Julie Galbraith (Glasgow Polyomics, UK) for preparing libraries and carrying out the Illumina RNA-Seq for the reference transcriptome. This work was supported by the Goldinger Trust Jewish Fund for the Future, the Koshland Foundation for Support of Interdisciplinary Research in Combatting Desertification, and the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee to SB, National Science Foundation, USA award MCB 1616827, Next-Generation BioGreen21 Program of Republic of Korea (PJ01317301) to MD, NSF-BSF-IOS-EDGE (National Science Foundation, USA and The United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation) 1923589/2019610 to MD and SB, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant (BBSRC; BB/R019894/1) to AA and PH. GE was supported by an Israel President Fellowship for Excellence and Scientific Innovation award, ND was supported by a Ben-Gurion University, Kreitman School for Advanced Research Studies High-tech, Bio-tech and Chemo-tech award, and GW was supported by an Economic Development Assistantship award from Louisiana State University. The authors also acknowledge the LSU High Performance Computing Services, and the BGU Bioinformatics Core Facility for providing computational resources needed for data analyses.",
year = "2022",
month = nov,
doi = "10.1111/nph.18411",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "236",
pages = "1006--1026",
journal = "New Phytologist",
issn = "0028-646X",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "3",
}