Abstract
Autopolyploidy is widespread in higher plants and plays an important role in the process of evolution. The present study successfully induced autotetraploidys from Chrysanthemum lavandulifolium by colchicine. The plant morphology, genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenetic changes between tetraploid and diploid plants were investigated. Ligulate flower, tubular flower and leaves of tetraploid plants were greater than those of the diploid plants. Compared with diploid plants, the genome changed as a consequence of polyploidization in tetraploid plants, namely, 1.1% lost fragments and 1.6% novel fragments occurred. In addition, DNA methylation increased after genome doubling in tetraploid plants. Among 485 common transcript-derived fragments (TDFs), which existed in tetraploid and diploid progenitors, 62 fragments were detected as differentially expressed TDFs, 6.8% of TDFs exhibited up-regulated gene expression in the tetraploid plants and 6.0% exhibited down-regulation. The present study provides a reference for further studying the autopolyploidization role in the evolution of C. lavandulifolium. In conclusion, the autopolyploid C. lavandulifolium showed a global change in morphology, genome and gene expression compared with corresponding diploid.
Highlights
Polyploidy is a universal phenomenon in higher plants
Six tetraploid lines and six corresponding diploid plants were propagated by tissue culture after transfer to the experimental fields
A number of significant morphological changes were observed in each tetraploid plant (Figure 1 and Table 1)
Summary
Polyploidy is a universal phenomenon in higher plants. Approximately 30%–70% of angiosperms are polyploids or cryptic polyploids [1], having undergone at least one event of whole genome duplication (WGD) in their evolutionary history. Polyploids can exhibit novel phenotypes that are not present in their diploid progenitors or exceeded the range of the contributing species in terms of certain traits, such as organ size and biomass, apomixis, and others [5,6]. All of these factors can give polyploids heightened chances to survive in new environments and can improve their agricultural output and quality. Wang et al [12,13] have already evidenced changes of genetic and epigenetic in wide crosses between species in Asteraceae and genomic and transcriptomic alterations in allopolyploids may accelerate the evolutionary process
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