- 1Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, Genoscope, Institut de Génomique, BP5706, 91057 Evry, France.
- 2CNRS, UMR 8030, CP5706, Evry, France.
- 3Université d’Evry, UMR 8030, CP5706, Evry, France.
- 4Department of Biological Sciences, 109 Cooke Hall, University at Buffalo (State University of New York), Buffalo, NY 14260, USA.
- 5Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), UMR Résistance des Plantes aux Bioagresseurs (RPB) [Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), IRD, UM2)], BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
- 6CIRAD, UMR Amélioration Génétique et Adaptation des Plantes Méditerranéennes et Tropicales (AGAP), F-34398 Montpellier, France.
- 7IRD, UMR Diversité Adaptation et Développement des Plantes (CIRAD, IRD, UM2), BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
- 8Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Development (ENEA) Casaccia Research Center, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Roma, Italy.
- 9Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Ottawa, 585 King Edward Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
- 10Bioversity International, Parc Scientifique Agropolis II, 34397 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
- 11Nestlé Research and Development Centre, 101 Avenue Gustave Eiffel, Notre-Dame-d’Oé, BP 49716, 37097 Tours Cedex 2, France.
- 12ENEA Trisaia Research Center, 75026 Rotondella, Italy.
- 13Center for Biotechnology, Universität Bielefeld, Universitätsstraße 27, D-33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
- 14AG Genominformatik, Technische Fakultät, Universität Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany.
- 15Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Unité de Recherches en Génomique-Info (UR INRA 1164), Centre de Recherche de Versailles, 78026 Versailles Cedex, France.
- 16Department of Biology, Chongqing University of Science and Technology, 4000042 Chongqing, China.
- 17Department of Plant Biology, 148 Edward R. Madigan Laboratory, MC-051, 1201 West Gregory Drive, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
- 18Departament de Genètica and Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 643, Barcelona 08028, Spain.
- 19Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, Mathematics Building 084, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
- 20School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, 800 King Edward Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
- 21Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Licio Giorgieri 5, 34127 Trieste, Italy.
- 22Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Institute, Jember, East Java, Indonesia.
- 23Laboratório de Genética Molecular, Núcleo de Biotecnologia (NTBio), Embrapa Recursos Genéticos e Biotecnologia, Final Av. W/5 Norte, Parque Estação Biológia, Brasília-DF 70770-917, Brazil.
- 24CIRAD, UMR RPB (CIRAD, IRD, UM2), BP 64501, 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
- 25DNA Analytica Srl, Via Licio Giorgieri 5, 34127 Trieste, Italy.
- 26Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia 4072, Australia.
- 27Central Coffee Research Institute, Coffee Board, Coffee Research Station (Post) - 577 117 Chikmagalur District, Karnataka State, India.
- 28Hawaii Agriculture Research Center, Post Office Box 100, Kunia, HI 96759-0100, USA.
- 29BIO5 Institute, University of Arizona, 1657 Helen Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: vaalbert{at}buffalo.edu (V.A.A.); pwincker{at}genoscope.cns.fr (P.W.);philippe.lashermes{at}ird.fr (P.L.)
Caffeine has evolved multiple times among plant species, but no one knows whether these events involved similar genes. Denoeud et al. sequenced the Coffea canephora (coffee) genome and identified a conserved gene order (see the Perspective by Zamir). Although this species underwent fewer genome duplications than related species, the relevant caffeine genes experienced tandem duplications that expanded their numbers within this species. Scientists have seen similar but independent expansions in distantly related species of tea and cacao, suggesting that caffeine might have played an adaptive role in coffee evolution.
Coffee is a valuable beverage crop due to its characteristic flavor, aroma, and the stimulating effects of caffeine. We generated a high-quality draft genome of the species Coffea canephora, which displays a conserved chromosomal gene order among asterid angiosperms. Although it shows no sign of the whole-genome triplication identified in Solanaceae species such as tomato, the genome includes several species-specific gene family expansions, among them N-methyltransferases (NMTs) involved in caffeine production, defense-related genes, and alkaloid and flavonoid enzymes involved in secondary compound synthesis. Comparative analyses of caffeine NMTs demonstrate that these genes expanded through sequential tandem duplications independently of genes from cacao and tea, suggesting that caffeine in eudicots is of polyphyletic origin.
Received for publication 28 April 2014.
Accepted for publication 29 July 2014.