Comprehensive Comparative Genomic and Transcriptomic Analyses of the Legume Genes Controlling the Nodulation Process

Zhenzhen Qiao, Lise Pingault, Mehrnoush Nourbakhsh-Rey, Marc Libault

Nitrogen is one of the most essential plant nutrients and one of the major factors limiting crop productivity. Having the goal to perform a more sustainable agriculture, there is a need to maximize biological nitrogen fixation, a feature of legumes. To enhance our understanding of the molecular mechanisms controlling the interaction between legumes and rhizobia, the symbiotic partner fixing and assimilating the atmospheric nitrogen for the plant, researchers took advantage of genetic and genomic resources developed across different legume models (e.g., Medicago truncatula, Lotus japonicus, Glycine max, and Phaseolus vulgaris) to identify key regulatory protein coding genes of the nodulation process. In this study, we are presenting the results of a comprehensive comparative genomic analysis to highlight orthologous and paralogous relationships between the legume genes controlling nodulation. Mining large transcriptomic datasets, we also identified several orthologous and paralogous genes characterized by the induction of their expression during nodulation across legume plant species. This comprehensive study prompts new insights into the evolution of the nodulation process in legume plant and will benefit the scientific community interested in the transfer of functional genomic information between species.