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Monday, September 9, 2013

Ionomics sheds new light on evolution

A new paper in Science from the Salt lab describes how polyploidy enhances leaf concentration of potassium and fitness in saline soils, supporting the notion that genome duplication is important in the evolutionary history of plants.

Chao DY, Dilkes B, Luo H, Douglas A, Yakubova E, Lahner B, Salt DE. Polyploids exhibit higher potassium uptake and salinity tolerance in Arabidopsis. Science. 2013 Aug 9;341(6146):658-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1240561. Epub 2013 Jul 25.
PubMed PMID: 23887874.

Abstract: Genome duplication (or polyploidization) has occurred throughout plant evolutionary history, and is thought to have driven the adaptive radiation of plants. We found that the cytotype of the root, and not the genotype, determined the majority of heritable natural variation in the concentration of leaf potassium (K) in Arabidopsis thaliana. Autopolyploidy also provided resistance to salinity and may represent an adaptive outcome of the enhanced K accumulation of plants with higher ploidy.

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