Lu Chen, Jingyun Luo, Minliang Jin, Ning Yang, Xiangguo Liu, Yong Peng, Wenqiang Li, Alyssa Phillips, Brenda Cameron, Julio S. Bernal, Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, Ruairidh J. H. Sawers, Qing Liu, Yuejia Yin, Xinnan Ye, Jiali Yan, Qinghua Zhang, Xiaoting Zhang, Shenshen Wu, Songtao Gui, Wenjie Wei, Yuebin Wang, Yun Luo, Chenglin Jiang, Min Deng, Min Jin, Liumei Jian, Yanhui Yu, Maolin Zhang, Xiaohong Yang, Matthew B. Hufford, Alisdair R. Fernie, Marilyn L. Warburton, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Jianbing Yan

Nature Genetics (2022)，Published: 20 October 2022

Abstract

Maize is a globally valuable commodity and one of the most extensively studied genetic model organisms. However, we know surprisingly little about the extent and potential utility of the genetic variation found in wild relatives of maize. Here, we characterize a high-density genomic variation map from 744 genomes encompassing maize and all wild taxa of the genusZea, identifying over 70 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms. The variation map reveals evidence of selection within taxa displaying novel adaptations. We focus on adaptive alleles in highland teosinte and temperate maize, highlighting the key role of flowering-time-related pathways in their adaptation. To show the utility of variants in these data, we generate mutant alleles for two flowering-time candidate genes. This work provides an extensive sampling of the genetic diversity ofZea, resolving questions on evolution and identifying adaptive variants for direct use in modern breeding.