Newly arisen indel governs a leaf shape polymorphism in the Ivy Leaf Morning Glory (Ipomoea hederacea)
Peake, A. L.; Glasgow, E.; Abbasi, C.; Gong, Y.; Whitt, L.; Williams, M.; Grimwood, J.; Harkess, A.; Stinchcombe, J. R.
Plant Genetics
That scraggly morning glory vine climbing your fence with the unusual lobed leaves isn't just pretty — it's carrying a genetic switch that may also affect how it handles sun, herbivores, and drought, which is why lobed and unlobed plants grow at different latitudes across North America.
Ivy Leaf Morning Glory comes in two leaf shapes — lobed like a maple or smooth and heart-shaped — and scientists have long known this is controlled by a single inherited switch, like eye color in humans. They finally found that switch: a big chunk of DNA that's either present or deleted entirely, with no in-between. Surprisingly, the deleted DNA itself doesn't contain obvious leaf-shape genes, but it sits next to genes involved in plant growth hormones, and may also quietly influence other traits like how the plant deals with insects or drought.
Key Findings
A 117 kb (117,000 base pair) DNA deletion perfectly co-segregates with leaf shape across 123 individuals from 55 populations, making it the causal variant for this Mendelian polymorphism.
The deletion is newly arisen in Ipomoea hederacea — related Ipomoea species with similar leaf shapes use entirely different genetic mechanisms, showing convergent evolution at the trait but not the gene level.
Candidate genes near (but not within) the indel are involved in the auxin biosynthesis pathway, and genes inside the deletion have functions potentially affecting ecologically relevant traits like herbivore resistance and stress response.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists discovered a large DNA deletion (117,000 base pairs) that perfectly controls whether Ivy Leaf Morning Glory plants grow lobed or unlobed leaves — resolving a longstanding mystery about this well-studied polymorphism. The deletion appears to have arisen recently and works through a different genetic mechanism than similar leaf shapes in related species.
Abstract Preview
Leaf shape varies widely across plant taxa and has repeatedly been shown to affect ecophysiology, interspecific interactions, and fitness. We used population genomics, genome wide association studi...
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