S. spontaneum is a founding Saccharum species that contributes stress resistance to the genetic background of modern sugarcane cultivars. Here, we have assembled the autopolyploid S. spontaneum Np-X genome with ancestral form into 40 pseudo-chromosomes in 10 homologous groups, revealing the recent chromosome reduction and polyploidization that occurred in Saccharum. The paleo-duplicated chromosomal pairs exhibit functional redundancy in Saccharum and underwent ssion followed by fusion accompanied by centromeric spreading around 0.80 million years ago (Mya) before evolving into their current forms with basic chromosome numbers x = 9 and x = 8 in S. spontaneum, likely in a stepwise manner. WGDs occurred independently in Saccharum species around 1.5 Mya. Highly diverse chromatin structures exist among homologous chromosomes despite their high collinearity, and the re-structuring of NpChr5 and NpChr8 might have suppressed switching of chromatin structure from inactive to active. Resequencing of 116 sugarcane accessions elucidated that the S. spontaneum originated from North India and that the basic chromosome numbers x = 8, x = 9, and x = 10 originated independently, indicating that recent chromosome reduction rather than polyploidization has driven the adaptive evolution of Saccharum. Our study provides genomic resources and suggests new directions for accelerating sugarcane improvement and advances our knowledge of the evolution of auto-polyploids.

More and more RING finger genes were found to be implicated in various important biological processes. In the present study, a total of 731 RING domains in 715 predicted proteins were identified in Brassica rapa genome (AA, 2n = 20), which were further divided into eight types: RING-H2 (371), RING-HCa (215), RING-HCb (47), RING-v (44), RING-C2 (38), RING-D (10), RING-S/T (5) and RING-G (1). The 715 RING finger proteins were further classified into 51 groups according to the presence of additional domains. 700 RING finger protein genes were mapped to the 10 chromosomes of B. rapa with a range of 47 to 111 genes for each chromosome. 667 RING finger protein genes were expressed in at least one of the six tissues examined, indicating their involvement in various physiological and developmental processes in B. rapa. Hierarchical clustering analysis of RNA-seq data divided them into seven major groups, one of which includes 231 members preferentially expressed in leaf, and constitutes then a panel of gene candidates for studying the genetic and molecular mechanisms of leafy head traits in Brassica crops. Our results lay the foundation for further studies on the classification, evolution and putative functions of RING finger protein genes in Brassica species.

Background: Sugarcane served as the model plant for discovery of the C 4 photosynthetic pathway. Magnesium is the central atom of chlorophyll, and thus is considered as a critical nutrient for plant development and photosynthesis. In plants, the magnesium transporter (MGT) family is composed of a number of membrane proteins, which play crucial roles in maintaining Mg homeostasis. However, to date there is no information available on the genomics of MGTs in sugarcane due to the complexity of the Saccharum genome. Results: Here, we identified 10 MGTs from the Saccharum spontaneum genome. Phylogenetic analysis of MGTs suggested that the MGTs contained at least 5 last common ancestors before the origin of angiosperms. Gene structure analysis suggested that MGTs family of dicotyledon may be accompanied by intron loss and pseudoexon phenomena during evolution. The pairwise synonymous substitution rates corresponding to a divergence time ranged from 142.3 to 236.6 Mya, demonstrating that the MGTs are an ancient gene family in plants. Both the phylogeny and Ks analyses indicated that SsMGT1/SsMGT2 originated from the recent ρWGD, and SsMGT7/SsMGT8 originated from the recent σ WGD. These 4 recently duplicated genes were shown low expression levels and assumed to be functionally redundant. MGT6, MGT9 and MGT10 weredominant genes in the MGT family and werepredicted to be located inthe chloroplast. Of the 3 dominant MGTs, SsMGT6 expression levels were found to be induced in the light period, while SsMGT9 and SsMTG10 displayed high expression levels in the dark period. These results suggested that SsMGT6 may have a function complementary to SsMGT9 and SsMTG10 that follows thecircadian clock for MGT in the leaf tissues of S. spontaneum. MGT3, MGT7 and MGT10 had higher expression levels Insaccharum officinarum than in S. spontaneum, suggesting their functional divergence after the split of S. spontaneum and S. officinarum. Conclusions: This study of gene evolution and expression of MGTs in S. spontaneum provided basis for the comprehensive genomic study of the entire MGT genes family in Saccharum. The results are valuable for further functional analyses of MGT genes and utilization of the MGTs for Saccharum genetic improvement.

Plant metallothioneins (MTs), which are cysteine-rich, low-molecular-weight, and metal-binding proteins, play important roles in detoxification, metal ion homeostasis, and metal transport adjustment. In this study, a novel metallothionein gene, designated as ScMT2-1-3 (GenBank Accession number JQ627644), was identified from sugarcane. ScMT2-1-3 was 700 bp long, including a 240 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 79 amino acid residues. A His-tagged ScMT2-1-3 protein was successfully expressed in Escherichia coli system which had increased the host cell's tolerance to Cd2+, Cu2+, PEG, and NaCl. The expression of ScMT2-1-3 was upregulated under Cu2+ stress but downregulated under Cd2+ stress. Real-time qPCR demonstrated that the expression levels of ScMT2-1-3 in bud and root were over 14 times higher than those in stem and leaf, respectively. Thus, both the E. coli assay and sugarcane plantlets assay suggested that ScMT2-1-3 is significantly involved in the copper detoxification and storage in the cell, but its functional mechanism in cadmium detoxification and storage in sugarcane cells needs more testification though its expressed protein could obviously increase the host E. coli cell's tolerance to Cd2+. ScMT2-1-3 constitutes thus a new interesting candidate for elucidating the molecular mechanisms of MTs-implied plant heavy metal tolerance/accumulation and for developing sugarcane phytoremediator varieties.

MYB transcription factors of the R2R3-MYB family have been shown to play important roles in many plant processes. A sugarcane R2R3-MYB gene (ScMYB2) and its two alternative forms of transcript (ScMYB2S1 and ScMYB2S2) were identified in this study. The deduced protein of ScMYB2S1 is a typical plant R2R3-MYB protein, while ScMYB2S2 encodes a truncated protein. Real-time qPCR analysis revealed that ScMYB2S1 is suppressed under PEG-simulated drought stress in sugarcane, while ScMYB2S2 is induced at later treatment stage. A senescence symptom was observed when ScMYB2S1 was injected into tobacco leaves mediated by Agrobacterium, but no symptom for ScMYB2S2. Further investigation showed that the expression levels of 4 senescence-associated genes, NtPR-1a, NtNYC1, NtCAT3 and NtABRE, were markedly induced in tobacco leaves after ScMYB2S1-injection, while they were not sensitive to ScMYB2S2-injection. Moreover, MDA and proline were also investigated after injection. Similarly, MDA and proline levels were induced by ABA and ScMYB2S1, while inhibited by ScMYB2S2. We propose that ScMYB2, by alternatively splicing two transcripts (ScMYB2S1 and ScMYB2S2), is involved in an ABA-mediated leaf senescence signaling pathway and play positive role in respond to drought-induced senescence in sugarcane. The results of this study provide information for further research in sugarcane stress processes.