Analysis of the Genome Architectures for Petunia hybrida and its Wild Relatives

Petunia is one of the most popular bedding plants with a US wholesale value of $138 millions. Petunia is also a plant model for flower color and anthocyanin biosynthesis, flower morphology and development, pollination syndromes, transposable elements dynamics and self-incompatibility. The cultivated petunia, Petunia hybrida, is an example of a crop developed from the hybridization of two different species, P. axillaris (white flower petunia) and an unknown species from the P. integrifolia clade (purple flower petunias). In this presentation it will be described the genome architecture (genome size, gene space, gene families, repeats and ancestral polyploidization events) of the recently published wild petunias species, P. axillaris and P. inflata (accessions N and S6 respectively) and its cultivated relative P. hybrida (accession R27). The genomic contribution of the white and purple petunia clades to the cultivated petunia will be also discussed in detail, including genomic events that are possible sources of novel phenotypic variation such as gene conversions and transposon dynamics.