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On the Dispersal of Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.] Out of Africa: a Contribution from the Analysis of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA Haplotypes, Divergent Paralogs and Variants of 5.8S Protein Sequences

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Abstract

Bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), a multipurpose crop, is among the first domesticates of humans. This study analyses nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) of the two cultivated subspecies to improve our understanding on the African origin and the dispersal to Asia. A total of 146 nrDNA sequences representing 79 individuals from African cultivars and 67 individuals from Asian cultivars were compared; the resulting nrDNA sequences were composed of 35 and 16 haplotypes specific to Africa and Asia, respectively, and two additional haplotypes shared by both continents. When all the rDNA haplotypes were bulked, the genetic differentiation (F ST ) was significant between the subspecies (P < 0.001), within Africa (P < 0.001) and within Asia (P < 0.05), and the nucleotide diversity was 2.5-fold higher in Africa. Sorting the haplotypes by classes of paralogs revealed more classes in Africa, and in classes where African and Asian cultivars were represented, the diversity was higher in Africa, in general. The 5.8S-coding regions showed two to four amino acid differences resulting to nine protein sequence variants, one of which encompassed all the Asian cultivars. The nucleotide diversity at that shared variant was 1.43-fold higher in Africa than in Asia. Analyses of phylogenetic networks revealed major shared haplotypes containing 23.91 % of the cultivars and having founder locations. We suggest that African cultivars reached Asia. The study tags for the first time nrDNA haplotypes capable of discriminating between and within the subspecies. Thirty single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and five insertion-deletions (Indels) derived from the haplotypes and registered in GenBank are provided.

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Acknowledgments

The first author is grateful to the Food Security Center (FSC) of the University of Hohenheim (Stuttgart, Germany) for the visiting PhD sandwich scholarship that made this research work possible. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose contributions improved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to I. Vroh-Bi.

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N’dri, A.N.A., Zoro, B.I.A., Kouamé, L.P. et al. On the Dispersal of Bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.] Out of Africa: a Contribution from the Analysis of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA Haplotypes, Divergent Paralogs and Variants of 5.8S Protein Sequences. Plant Mol Biol Rep 34, 454–466 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11105-015-0936-0

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