Project description:A pseudometallophyte Arabidopsis halleri is frequently found to be infected with cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) in its natural habitat. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the effect of CMV infection on its natural hosts. The CMV(Ho) strain isolated from A. halleri was inoculated into clonal A. halleri plants that were obtained from runners of mother plants, and the pathosystem consisting of CMV(Ho) and its natural host A. halleri was established.In low heavy metal environment, the CMV(Ho) infection caused growth retardation in the above-ground part (stems and leaves) of host plants, and thereby conferred strong drought tolerance on host plants. On the other hand, in high heavy metal environment, which simulates a natural habitat for A halleri, the CMV(Ho) infection did not cause any symptoms to host plants and conferred mild drought tolerance. And the result of transcriptome analysis suggests that CMV(Ho) is recognized as a symbiont rather than a pathogen by its host plant. These results indicate a resilient mutualistic interaction between CMV(Ho) and its natural host A. halleri to adapt to an environmental change.
Project description:Gene copy number variation (CNV) is a form of genetic polymorphism that contributes significantly to genome size and function but remains poorly characterized due to technological limitations. Inter-specific comparisons of CNVs in recently diverged plant species are crucial to uncover selection patterns underlying adaptation of a species to stressful environments. Especially given that gene amplifications have long been implicated in emergence of species-specific traits, we conducted a genome-wide survey to identify species-specific gene copy number expansions and deletions in the model extremophile species - Arabidopsis halleri that has diverged in evolutionarily recent time from Arabidopsis thaliana. Cross-species cDNA array based comparative genomic hybridization was employed to compare and identify gene copy number variation in the two sister-species - the metallophyte Arabidopsis halleri and non-metallophyte Arabidopsis lyrata, both relative to Arabidopsis thaliana. We uncovered an unprecedented level of gene copy number polymorphism in Arabidopsis halleri, with a species-specific enrichment of metal homeostasis function in the genes found to be copy number expanded, thus indicating CNV as a mechanism that underlies the key physiological trait of metal hyperaccumulation and hypetolerance in A. halleri.