Stress-Induced Genetic Change in Flax Reveals Genome Variation Mechanism

Abstract

By XIANG LI Inherited genetic change can happen in flax (Linum usitatissimum) due to environmental stress. The change can result in different phenotypes in flax progeny. The genetic changes can be induced during one generation and can result in stable genotypes in the next generation. Also the genetic changes are precise and repeatable that homozygous individuals show the same genome reorganization at specific sites in their progeny. Therefore, the genetic re-arrangements are not the result of a random process but a preference for a particular DNA structure, which indicates that possible new genes or functional fragments are formed during this process. The genomes of different varieties of flax are compared to explain the detail of the rapid but intentional genomic changes and regions of variation identified by whole genome comparisons. Possible mechanisms and the potential causes of these rearrangements bring a new light to modern plant genome studies and molecular evolution research. 7