University Honors

Plants are remarkably able to colonize and succeed in a wide variety of environments.The number and types of genetic changes that contribute to adaptation to different areas of theworld remains mostly unclear. In this experiment, I investigated the genetic diversity of thebarley composite cross parents that are geographically and genetically diverse. To explore theparents' genetic diversity, I performed genome alignment for each of the parents using long readsequences produced using the Pacific Biosciences HiFi Technology and use the most suitablebioinformatic tools to identify and analyze the structural variations. I identified 366,149structural variations, and over 60% of them are deletions. We also observe that structural variantsare most abundant near the centromere and at the ends of chromosomes. GO enrichment analysisfound deleted genes associated with DNA transposition, integration, DNA repair enzymaticactivity, and tissue development, which might contribute to the role in adaptation. The deletedplant developmental gene shows high similarity to MAIN and MAIN LIKE protein inArabidopsis thaliana database, which may have a role in TEs silencing, genome stability, geneexpression and correct meristem cell division in the barley genome.