Advanced Science (Jan 2020)

Mesostigma viride Genome and Transcriptome Provide Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Streptophyta

  • Zhe Liang,
  • Yuke Geng,
  • Changmian Ji,
  • Hai Du,
  • Chui Eng Wong,
  • Qian Zhang,
  • Ye Zhang,
  • Pingxian Zhang,
  • Adeel Riaz,
  • Sadaruddin Chachar,
  • Yike Ding,
  • Jing Wen,
  • Yunwen Wu,
  • Mingcheng Wang,
  • Hongkun Zheng,
  • Yanmin Wu,
  • Viktor Demko,
  • Lisha Shen,
  • Xiao Han,
  • Pengpeng Zhang,
  • Xiaofeng Gu,
  • Hao Yu

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.201901850
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. n/a – n/a

Abstract

Read online

Abstract The Streptophyta include unicellular and multicellular charophyte green algae and land plants. Colonization of the terrestrial habitat by land plants is a major evolutionary event that has transformed the planet. So far, lack of genome information on unicellular charophyte algae hinders the understanding of the origin and the evolution from unicellular to multicellular life in Streptophyta. This work reports the high‐quality reference genome and transcriptome of Mesostigma viride, a single‐celled charophyte alga with a position at the base of Streptophyta. There are abundant segmental duplications and transposable elements in M. viride, which contribute to a relatively large genome with high gene content compared to other algae and early diverging land plants. This work identifies the origin of genetic tools that multicellular Streptophyta have inherited and key genetic innovations required for the evolution of land plants from unicellular aquatic ancestors. The findings shed light on the age‐old questions of the evolution of multicellularity and the origin of land plants.

Keywords