Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40662302›Full record

ArticleMolecular ecology2025

The Evolutionary Dynamics of Genetic Mutational Load Throughout Tomato Domestication History.

Hamid Razifard, Sofia Visa, Naama Menda, Lukas Mueller, Denise Tieman, Esther van der Knaap, Ana L Caicedo

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Molecular ecology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Hamid RazifardInstitute for Applied Life Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6343-3052
Sofia VisaDepartment of Mathematics and Computer Science, College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, USA.
Naama MendaBoyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, New York, USA.
Lukas MuellerBoyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, New York, USA.
Denise TiemanHorticultural Sciences, Plant Innovation Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
Esther van der KnaapDepartment of Horticulture, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Ana L CaicedoInstitute for Applied Life Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0378-6374

Funding

National Science Foundation IOS 1564366
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Understanding the impact of domestication on deleterious mutations has fascinated evolutionary biologists and breeders alike. A 'cost of domestication' has been reported for some organisms through accumulation of gene disruptions or radical amino acid changes. However, recent evidence paints a more complex picture of this phenomenon in different domesticated species. In this study, we used genomic sequences of 253 tomato accessions to investigate the evolution of deleterious mutations and genomic structural variants (SVs) through tomato domestication history. We apply phylogeny-based methods to identify deleterious mutations in the domesticated tomato as well as its semi-wild and wild relatives. Our results implicate a downward trend throughout domestication in the number of genetic variants, regardless of their functional impact. This suggests that demographic factors have reduced overall genetic diversity, leading to lower deleterious load and SVs as well as loss of some beneficial alleles during tomato domestication. However, we detected an increase in proportions of nonsynonymous and deleterious alleles (relative to synonymous and neutral nonsynonymous alleles, respectively) during the initial stage of tomato domestication in Ecuador. Additionally, deleterious alleles in the commonly cultivated tomato seem to be more frequent than expected under a neutral hypothesis of molecular evolution. Our analyses also revealed frequent deleterious alleles in several well-studied tomato genes, probably involved in response to biotic and abiotic stress as well as fruit development and flavour regulation. To provide a practical guide for breeding experiments, we created TomDel, a public searchable database of 21,162 potentially deleterious alleles identified in this study (hosted on the Solanaceae Genomic Network; https://solgenomics.net/).

Indexed as

DomesticationEvolution, MolecularMutationSolanum lycopersicumAllelesGenetic VariationGenome, PlantPhylogenycost of domesticationdeleterious allelesmutational loadsolanumtomato

Identifiers

PMID40662302
PMCPMC12717970

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.