Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 28, Issue 18, Pages 3005-+Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.029
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFD0100303, 2016YFD0100404]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31771806, 31322042]
- Recruitment Program of Global Experts
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
- US National Science Foundation [IOS1025869, IOS1238014]
- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF GENERAL MEDICAL SCIENCES [T32GM007133] Funding Source: NIH RePORTER
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was domesticated in southwestern Mexico similar to 9,000 years ago from its wild ancestor, teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis) [1]. From its center of origin, maize experienced a rapid range expansion and spread over 90 degrees of latitude in the Americas [2-4], which required a novel flowering-time adaptation. ZEA CENTRORADIALIS 8 (ZCN8) is the maize florigen gene and has a central role in mediating flowering [5, 6]. Here, we show that ZCN8 underlies a major quantitative trait locus (QTL) (qDTA8) for flowering time that was consistently detected in multiple maize-teosinte experimental populations. Through association analysis in a large diverse panel of maize inbred lines, we identified a SNP (SNP-1245) in the ZCN8 promoter that showed the strongest association with flowering time. SNP-1245 co-segregated with qDTA8 in maize-teosinte mapping populations. We demonstrate that SNP-1245 is associated with differential binding by the flowering activator ZmMADS1. SNP-1245 was a target of selection during early domestication, which drove the pre-existing early flowering allele to near fixation in maize. Interestingly, we detected an independent association block upstream of SNP-1245, wherein the early flowering allele that most likely originated from Zea mays ssp. mexicana introgressed into the early flowering haplotype of SNP-1245 and contributed to maize adaptation to northern high latitudes. Our study demonstrates how independent cis-regulatory variants at a gene can be selected at different evolutionary times for local adaptation, highlighting how complex cis-regulatory control mechanisms evolve. Finally, we propose a polygenic map for the pre-Columbian spread of maize throughout the Americas.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available