Katrien Devos

University of Georgia | UGA · Department of Crop and Soil Sciences

A number of crop wild relatives can tolerate extreme stress to a degree outside the range observed in their domesticated relatives. However, it is unclear whether or how the molecular mechanisms employed by these species can be translated to domesticated crops. Paspalum ( Paspalum vaginatum ) is a self-incompatible and multiply stress-tolerant wild...

Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important post-transcriptional regulators involved in the control of a range of processes, including symbiotic interactions in plants. MiRNA involvement in arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM) symbiosis has been mainly studied in model species, and our study is the first to analyze global miRNA expression in the roots of AM...

The prevalence of genetic diversity in switchgrass germplasm can be exploited to capture favorable alleles that increase its range of adaptation and biomass yield. The objectives of the study were to analyze the extent of polymorphism and patterns of segregation distortion in two F1 populations and use the linkage maps to locate QTL for biomass yie...

Finger millet [Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.] is a critical subsistence crop in eastern Africa and southern Asia but has few genomic resources and modern breeding programs. To aid in the understanding of finger millet genomic organization and genes underlying disease resistance and agronomically important traits, we generated a F2:3 population fro...

Aegilops tauschii is the donor of the D subgenome of hexaploid wheat and an important genetic resource. The reference-quality genome sequence Aet v4.0 for Ae. tauschii acc. AL8/78 was therefore an important milestone for wheat biology and breeding. Further advances in sequencing acc. AL8/78 and release of the Aet v5.0 sequence assembly are reported...

A number of crop wild relatives can tolerate extreme stressed to a degree outside the range observed in their domesticated relatives. However, it is unclear whether or how the molecular mechanisms employed by these species can be translated to domesticated crops. Paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum) is a self-incompatible and multiply stress-tolerant wild...

Key message Mapping combined with expression and variant analyses in switchgrass, a crop with complex genetics, identified a cluster of candidate genes for leaf wax in a fast-evolving region of chromosome 7K. Abstract Switchgrass ( Panicum virgatum L.) is a promising warm-season candidate energy crop. It occurs in two ecotypes, upland and lowland,...

Long-term climate change and periodic environmental extremes threaten food and fuel security1 and global crop productivity2–4. Although molecular and adaptive breeding strategies can buffer the effects of climatic stress and improve crop resilience5, these approaches require sufficient knowledge of the genes that underlie productivity and adaptatio...

Phenotypes such as branching, photoperiod sensitivity, and height were modified during plant domestication and crop improvement. Here, we perform quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping of these and other agronomic traits in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from an interspecific cross between Sorghum propinquum and Sorghum bicolor...

Background Biomass composition varies from plant to plant and greatly affects biomass utilization. Lignin is a heterogeneous phenolic polymer derived mainly from p -coumaryl, coniferyl, and sinapyl alcohols and makes up to 10–25% of lignocellulosic biomass. Recently, tricin, an O -methylated flavone, was identified as a lignin monomer in many grass...

Salinity is a growing issue worldwide, with nearly 30% of arable land predicted to be lost due to soil salinity in the next 30 years. Many grass crops that are vital to sustain the world's caloric intake are salt sensitive. Studying mechanisms of salt tolerance in halophytic grasses, plants that thrive in salt conditions, may be an effective approa...

Key message: This study uses simulations to explore statistical power and false-positive rates for eQTL mapping in allopolyploid organisms and provides guidelines to apply eQTL mapping in these organisms. In recent years, RNA-seq has become the dominant technology for eQTL studies. However, most work has been in diploid organisms. Many species of...

Phenotypes such as branching, photoperiod sensitivity, and height were modified during plant domestication and crop improvement. Here, we perform quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping of these and other agronomic traits in a recombinant inbred line (RIL) population derived from an interspecific cross between Sorghum propinquum and Sorghum bicolor...

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), a C4 perennial grass native to North America and developed as a sustainable biofuel feedstock, occurs in two ecotypes, lowland and upland, which vary in their architecture as well as their range of adaptation. In this study, we assessed single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variation in 372 switchgrass genotypes for n...

Eremurus species, better known as ‘Foxtail Lily’ or ‘Desert Candle’, are important worldwide in landscaping and the cut-flower industry. One of the centers of highest diversity of the genus Eremurus is Iran, which has seven species. However, little is known about the genetic diversity within the genus Eremurus. With the advent of genotyping-by-sequ...

As a step towards trait mapping in the halophyte seashore paspalum (Paspalum vaginatum Sw.), we developed an F1 mapping population from a cross between two genetically diverse and heterozygous accessions, 509022 and HI33. Progeny were genotyped using a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach and sequence reads were analyzed for single nucleotide po...

Pearl millet is an important food crop in arid and semi-arid regions of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and is grown in Australia and the United States as a summer fodder crop. The d2 dwarf germplasm has been widely used in the last half-century to develop high-performing pearl millet hybrids. We previously mapped the d2 phenotype to a 1.6 cM reg...

We report the first high-density linkage map construction through genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) in leaf chicory (Cichorium intybus subsp. intybus var. foliosum, 2n = 2x = 18) and the SNP-based fine mapping of the linkage group region carrying a recessive gene responsible for male-sterility (ms1). An experimental BC 1 population, segregating for th...

Background: Advances in genomic technologies have expanded our ability to accurately and exhaustively detect natural genomic variants that can be applied in crop improvement and to increase our knowledge of plant evolution and adaptation. Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.), an allotetraploid (2n = 4× = 36) perennial C4 grass (Poaceae family) native...

Key message Comparison of genome sequences of wild emmer wheat and Aegilops tauschii suggests a novel scenario of the evolution of rearranged wheat chromosomes 4A, 5A, and 7B. Abstract Past research suggested that wheat chromosome 4A was subjected to a reciprocal translocation T(4AL;5AL)1 that occurred in the diploid progenitor of the wheat A subg...

Setaria (L.) P. Beauv is a genus of grasses that belongs to the Poaceae (grass) family, subfamily Panicoideae. Two members of the Setaria genus, Setaria italica (foxtail millet) and S. viridis (green foxtail), have been studied extensively over the past few years as model species for C4-photosynthesis and to facilitate genome studies in complex Pan...

Multi-sequence alignment of the Sh1 alleles and transcripts in S. viridis accession A10 and S. italica accessions Yugu1, B100, Ise-3 and Ise-5. Genomic and cDNA sequences are indicated with “genomic” and “cDNA,” respectively, in the sequence name. Intron sequences have a white background, exon sequences have brown (A), yellow (C), green (T), and pu...

Semi-quantitative RT-PCR of qSH1 in leaves and panicles of A10 and B100.

Insertion of (A) MITE 1 and (B) MITE 2 in the 5′UTR of qSH1 was accompanied or followed by rearrangements. The MITE sequence is delineated by “|”. Deletions are in red, insertions in green. [ ] indicates SSR units. Microhomology flanking the deletion is highlighted in yellow.

Alignment of RNA-Seq reads against Sh1 genomic sequence. (A) A10 reads (SRX875196) against Sevir.9G153200 (only the read coverage is shown) and (B) Yugu1 reads (SRX2832831) against Seita.9G154300 (both read coverage and individual read alignments are shown). Exon locations are indicated with red boxes. The MITE location in Seita9G.154300 is shown i...

Multi-sequence alignment at the protein level across different grass species of the qSH1 region carrying the non-synonymous SNP that differentiates S. italica from S. viridis (position 31 in this alignment).

Genotypic and phenotypic data for the B100 × A10 F2:3 and RIL populations.

Presence/absence of MITEs 1 and 2 in qSH1 in S. italica germplasm.

Multi-sequence alignment of the qSH1 alleles in S. viridis accession A10, and S. italica accessions B100 and Yugu1. MITE sequences have green (A), orange (C), blue (T), and red (G) backgrounds. The “ATG” start codon has a white background.

Background: Research on orphan crops is often hindered by a lack of genomic resources. With the advent of affordable sequencing technologies, genotyping an entire genome or, for large-genome species, a representative fraction of the genome has become feasible for any crop. Nevertheless, most genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) methods are geared toward...

Homology was searched with genes annotated in the Aegilops tauschii pseudomolecules against genes annotated in the pseudomolecules of tetraploid wild emmer wheat, Brachypodium distachyon, sorghum, and rice. Similar searches were initiated with genes annotated in the rice pseudomolecules. Matrices of colinear genes and rearrangements in their order...

Nat. Biotechnol. 35, 969–976 (2017); published online 18 September 2017; corrected after print 28 February 2018 In the version of this article initially published, in the HTML, the wrong Creative Commons Attribution license (cc-by-nc rather than cc-by) was inserted. The error has been corrected in the HTML version of the article.

Two genome assemblies have been generated for Setaria italica, one in the accession Yugu1 and one in the accession Zhang gu. A comparison of the two assemblies showed overall high levels of colinearity, but identified a number of likely misoriented and/or misplaced sequence scaffolds. Using available comparative information between Setaria, rice, s...

Background The presence of non-coding introns is a characteristic feature of most eukaryotic genes. While the size of the introns, number of introns per gene and the number of intron-containing genes can vary greatly between sequenced eukaryotic genomes, the structure of a gene with reference to intron presence and positions is typically conserved...

Aegilops tauschii is the diploid progenitor of the D genome of hexaploid wheat (Triticum aestivum, genomes AABBDD) and an important genetic resource for wheat. The large size and highly repetitive nature of the Ae. tauschii genome has until now precluded the development of a reference-quality genome sequence. Here we use an array of advanced techno...

The importance of the warm-season grass Paspalum vaginatum Sw. lies in its salt tolerance and its ability to serve as forage, ground cover for erosion control, and turf for sport surfaces in vulnerable areas in the tropics and subtropics. We conducted DNA content measurements using flow cytometry and diversity analyses using 43 simple sequence repe...

Pearl millet [Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone] is a staple food for more than 90 million farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, India and South Asia. We report the ~1.79 Gb draft whole genome sequence of reference genotype Tift 23D2B1-P1-P5, which contains an estimated 38,579 genes. We highlight the substantial enrichment for...

Setaria viridis (L.) P. Beauv. and its domesticated form, S. italica (L.) P. Beauv., have been developed over the past few years as model systems for C4 photosynthesis and for the analysis of bioenergy traits. S. viridis is native to Eurasia, but is now a ubiquitous weed. An analysis of the population structure of a set of 232 S. viridis lines, mos...

Natural genetic variation for reduced recalcitrance can be used to improve switchgrass for biofuel production. A full-sib switchgrass mapping population developed by crossing a lowland genotype, AP13, and upland genotype, VS16, was evaluated at three locations (Ardmore and Burneyville, OK and Watkinsville, GA). Biomass harvested after senescence in...

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is a perennial C4 grass that has gained attention for its potential as a dedicated biomass crop. Two ecotypes, lowland and upland switchgrass, can be distinguished based on plant morphology and region of adaptation. Genetic linkage maps have been constructed in both a lowland cultivar, “Alamo” (genotype AP13), and an...

Tef (Eragrostis tef) is the mainstay of Ethiopian agriculture, with more acres planted than in any other crop. Tef has high resilience to both drought and waterlogged soils, but yield is limited by the tiny seed size and severe susceptibility to lodging. We have used mutational and other genetic approaches to help solve these two problems. Among te...

Numerous instances of presence/absence variations for introns have been documented in eukaryotes, and some cases of recurrent loss of the same intron have been suggested. However, there has been no comprehensive or phylogenetically deep analysis of recurrent intron loss. Of 883 cases of intron presence/absence variation that we detected in five seq...