From tiny to massive: exploring genome evolution in the model 1 grass genus Brachypodium

Abstract

Brachypodium is a powerful model system for investigating grass genome evolution, yet genomic resources remain concentrated in the three annual species, whereas perennial species are less sampled. Here, we present chromosome-level assemblies for two perennial species, Brachypodium mexicanum and B. arbuscula, which represent the earliest-diverging lineages of the genus and the earliest-diverging lineage of the core perennial clade, respectively. Synteny-based phylogenomics indicate that B. mexicanum is a meso-allotetraploid composed of two closely related but temporally distinct x=10 subgenomes, here designed as P and U, each carrying subgenome-specific chromosome rearrangements. We further show that the unusually large B. mexicanum genome, in contrast to the reduced genomes of most other Brachypodium species, is primarily due to transposable elements distributed across all chromosomal regions. By contrast, the diploid genome of the earliest-diverging core perennial, B. arbuscula, contains few transposable elements, whereas the most recent diverged diploid perennial B. sylvaticum shows evidence of a secondary TEs proliferation. Comparisons of lineage-specific and functionally enriched orthogroups among B. mexicanum, core perennial species and annual species suggest that ancestral hybridization between annual and perennial lineages may have contributed to the origin of allotetraploid B. mexicanum. These assemblies provide a framework for testing how polyploidy, descending dysploidy, transposable-element turnover, and life-history evolution jointly shaped genome architecture in Brachypodium.