This "living fossil" wild peach relies on its strength to dominate the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

This "living fossil" wild peach relies on its strength to dominate the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

This "living fossil" wild peach relies on its strength to dominate the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The light walnut flower in Pai Town, Milin County, Nyingchi City, Tibet, with the famous Nanga Bawa Peak in the distance
.

Photo shooting and authorized use: Cao Yuqing

The light walnut flower in Pai Town, Milin County, Nyingchi City, Tibet, with the famous Nanga Bawa Peak in the distance

Prunus mira( Prunus mira ), also known as Tibetan peach, is a kind of peach tree widely distributed in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
.

Prunus mira

July 26, farming and pastoral beauty of Sciences researcher team has a joint Huazhong Agricultural University professor Xu strong team in the "Current Biology" ( Current Biology ) published online, reveals the molecular mechanisms adapt to high altitude environment special light walnut, to understand the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau The genetic basis of perennial fruit tree crops adapting to high altitude environments provides new insights
.

Current Biology )

The "living fossil" of peach

The "living fossil" of peach

"On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there are more than 300,000 walnuts.
They are wild or semi-wild.
They are widely distributed in different ecological types and different altitude gradients of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
.

" The co-corresponding author Zeng Xiuli told the China Science Daily, she led The team began investigating the distribution of resources in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of prunus crops such as light walnuts in 2009

Walnut is mainly distributed in Tibet.
It is one of the highest-altitude perennial woody cash crops in the world that can bloom and bear fruit in the wild
.

According to Zeng Xiuli, this kind of peach has a smooth core surface, and most of the core lines are less, hence the name Guang Walnut
.

Some light walnut fruits have high sugar content and can be eaten fresh or made into dried peaches

The stone surface of Tibet peach is smooth, which is obviously different from the various textures of cultivated peach stone
.

Photo courtesy of the interviewee

The stone surface of Tibet peach is smooth, which is obviously different from the various textures of cultivated peach stone

"Light walnuts are the'living fossils' of peaches
.

They reproduce naturally in Tibet, reproduce offspring by seeds, adapt to the plateau environment of Tibet, and form large-scale natural distribution of diverse perennial seedlings

Such a huge resource of wild peach trees is almost unavailable in other regions of our country
.

Tibetan peaches have a life span of 100 to 1,000 years, which is significantly longer than cultivated peaches with a life span of only 20 to 30 years.

The light walnut bears fruit at an altitude of 3900 meters
.

Photo courtesy of the interviewee

The light walnut bears fruit at an altitude of 3900 meters

The joint research team assembled the genomes of light walnut, Tibetan plum and Tibetan apricot.
The light walnut genome is close to the chromosome level and is the highest quality Prunus genome to date
.

This laid the foundation for further analysis of the genetic mechanism of crops adapting to the plateau environment
.

Genetic mechanism of Tibetan peach adapting to plateau

Genetic mechanism of Tibetan peach adapting to plateau

During long-term field investigations, they discovered peach, plum, apricot, and plum plants distributed in Tibet
.

This study carried out genetic analysis on 377 resources of Tibetan plums, such as Guanghwa, which are distributed between 2067 meters and 4498 meters above sea level
.

Light walnut old tree
.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee

Light walnut old tree
.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee

By comparing the populations of extreme high-altitude light walnut and extreme low-altitude light walnut, they found that the light walnut genomes at different altitudes have obvious genetic differentiation, especially genes related to ultraviolet stress signals are significantly enriched in genes that have genetic differentiation.
In
.

"When plants respond to a special external environment, they will form special secondary metabolites
.
" Zeng Xiuli said, before that, it was not known what special secondary metabolites were produced by walnuts in order to adapt to the plateau environment
.

Using 275 natural walnut resources distributed at different altitudes, they conducted a genetic analysis of the variation in the content of fruit metabolites: a total of 1,768 metabolites were quantitatively tested, and 379 metabolites were found to be highly correlated with altitude adaptability, among which benzene The content of propane-like substances is positively correlated with altitude
.

Xu Qiang, the co-corresponding author of the paper and a professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, introduced that through comparative genome analysis of the three pairs of representative plum species: light walnut, Tibetan plum, and Tibetan apricot, it was found that in the genome of the Tibetan-derived plum species, SINE-type reverse transcription The transposon content has increased significantly
.

They identified 62 SINE insertions co-localized with cultivated peach differential accumulation metabolites in the light walnut population
.
In the candidate gene promoter that controls the accumulation of 3-O-ferulylquinic acid, the researchers detected the insertion of two SINE-type transposons
.
One of the transposon insertions generally appeared in high-altitude light walnut materials, and showed a significant positive correlation with the expression of the candidate gene and the content of 3-O-ferulylquinic acid
.
The other transposon showed polymorphism in low-altitude walnut and cultivated peach
.

A model of genetic basis of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau plant Guanghua adapts to high altitude
.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee

A model of genetic basis of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau plant Guanghua adapts to high altitude
.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee

In extreme environments, SINE transposon bursts and jumps and adversity-adapted metabolite accumulation (middle diagram), SINE transposon inserts phenylpropane metabolite regulation gene to further promote the accumulation of adversity metabolites and thus in high altitude areas Adapt and survive long-term
.

"The genomic and metabolome evidence of the light walnut population shows that the amplification of the SINE-type transposon promotes the accumulation of beneficial metabolites to help the Tibetan Prunus plants adapt to the harsh environment of the Himalayas
.
" Xu Qiang said
.

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Project, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Tibet Autonomous Region's financial special fund project, the second Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Comprehensive Scientific Investigation and Research Project, the Postdoctoral Science Foundation and the Boxin Project
.
(Source: China Science News Li Chen)

Related paper information: https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cub.
2021.
06.
062

https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cub.
2021.
06.
062 https://doi.
org/10.
1016/j.
cub.
2021.
06.
062