Genetic diversity and biogeography of T. officinale inferred from multi locus sequence typing approach.

• Main Authors: Mohammadjavad Jafari, Waheed Akram, Yanju Pang, Aqeel Ahmad, Shakeel Ahmed, Nasim Ahmad Yasin, Tehmina Anjum, Basharat Ali, Xiangdong Hu, Xiaohua Li, Shuang Dong, Qian Cai, Matteo Ciprian, Monika Bielec, Sheng Hu, Fatemeh Sefidkon, Xuebo Hu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018-01-01
• Series: PLoS ONE
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6143195?pdf=render

Taraxacum officinale (Asteraceae) is widely distributed weedy plant used as a traditional medicinal herb. The population genetics and historical biogeography of this plant have remained relatively unexplored. This study explores phylogeny, population genetics and ancestral reconstructions adopting multi locus sequence typing (MLST) approach. MLST sequences dataset was generated from genomics and chloroplast DNA sequences obtained from 31 T. officinale haplotypes located in 16 different countries. Phylogenetic analysis distributed these haplotypes in well differentiated geographic clades. The study suggested a close relationship between Europe and adjacent Asian countries. Populations of these regions predominantly formed common haplogroups, showed considerable level of gene flow and evidence for recombination events across European and Asian population. Biogeographical inferences obtained by applying statistical dispersal-vicariance analysis (S-DIVA) and Bayesian binary MCMC (BBM) analysis showed that T. officinale was putatively originated in Europe. Molecular clock analysis based on ITS dataset suggested that the divergence between Europe and East Asian populations can be dated to 1.07 Mya with subsequent dispersal and vicariance events. Among different spatial process long distance seed dispersal mediated by wind had potentially assisted the population expansion of T. officinale.