Insights into the genetic basis of natural selection and domestication from Sorghum.
Guo H, Zhang D, Wang X, Lee TH, Paterson AH
Crop Improvement
Sorghum is the drought-tough grain quietly holding food security together across the driest farming regions on Earth, and decoding exactly which genes make it resilient opens a faster path to breeding crops that can handle the hotter, drier summers heading our way.
Farmers domesticated sorghum from a wild grass over thousands of years, but the specific genetic changes that made it a reliable crop were mostly a mystery. Researchers compared the DNA of dozens of sorghum varieties — both wild and cultivated — to spot the genes that changed most dramatically during that process. They found genes linked to surviving drought, resisting disease, and storing energy in seeds, and noticed that some of those same genes were also selected in maize and rice, suggesting nature found the same solutions repeatedly across different grains.
Key Findings
Four ion transporter genes showing signs of selective sweeps all map to genomic regions linked to drought resilience, making them strong candidates for engineering more water-efficient sorghum.
15 genes carry damaging mutations that are fixed differently between wild and domesticated sorghum, with 2 disease-resistance genes showing statistical signatures of very recent selection pressure.
22 genes show convergent selection across sorghum, maize, and rice — meaning independent domestication events across three major cereals repeatedly favored changes in the same biological pathways.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists scanned the genomes of 69 sorghum plants to find genes shaped by thousands of years of human farming and natural selection. They pinpointed a small set of genes likely responsible for drought tolerance, disease resistance, and seed quality — traits that made sorghum one of the world's most important grains.
Abstract Preview
Analysis of gene sequences showing signatures of selection can provide insights into the evolution and domestication of an organism and can suggest ways to accelerate crop improvement. Using whole-...
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Sorghum bicolor, commonly called sorghum and also known as broomcorn, great millet, Indian millet, Guinea corn, jowar, or milo, is a species in the grass genus Sorghum. It is typically an annual, but some cultivars are perennial. It grows in clumps that may reach over 4 metres (13 ft) high. The g...