Complete Resequencing of 40 Genomes Reveals Domestication Events and Genes in Silkworm (Bombyx)
The Taming of the Silkworm
Silkworms, Bombyx mori, represent one of the few domesticated insects, having been domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Xia et al. (p. 433, published online 27 August) sequenced 29 domestic and 11 wild silkworm lines and identified genes that were most likely to be selected during domestication. These genes represent those that enhance silk production, reproduction, and growth. Furthermore, silkworms were probably only domesticated once from a large progenitor population, rather than on multiple occasions, as has been observed for other domesticated animals.
Abstract
A single–base pair resolution silkworm genetic variation map was constructed from 40 domesticated and wild silkworms, each sequenced to approximately threefold coverage, representing 99.88% of the genome. We identified ~16 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms, many indels, and structural variations. We find that the domesticated silkworms are clearly genetically differentiated from the wild ones, but they have maintained large levels of genetic variability, suggesting a short domestication event involving a large number of individuals. We also identified signals of selection at 354 candidate genes that may have been important during domestication, some of which have enriched expression in the silk gland, midgut, and testis. These data add to our understanding of the domestication processes and may have applications in devising pest control strategies and advancing the use of silkworms as efficient bioreactors.
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Published In
Science
Volume 326 | Issue 5951
16 October 2009
16 October 2009
Copyright
Copyright © 2009, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Submission history
Received: 21 May 2009
Accepted: 12 August 2009
Published in print: 16 October 2009
Acknowledgments
We thank two anonymous referees, L. Goodman, L. Bolund, and K. Kristiansen for providing valuable comments. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (grants 2005CB121000, 2007CB815700, 2006AA10A117, 2006AA10A118, 2006AA02Z177, and 2006AA10A121), the Ministry of Education of China (Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University, grant IRT0750), Chongqing Municipal Government, the 111 Project (grant B07045), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 30725008, 30890032, and 90608010), the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project (grant 0806), the Chinese Academy of Science (grant GJHZ0701-6), the Danish Platform for Integrative Biology, the Ole Rømer grant from the Danish Natural Science Research Council, and the Solexa project (grant 272-07-0196). Raw genome data are deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information/Short Read archive database with accession number SRA009208; silkworm genetic variations, GROSS information, and microarray data can be found in http://silkworm.swu.edu.cn/silkdb/resequencing.html.
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