Inherited proliferation states organize plant transcriptomes

Genomic ancestry in 665 Arabidopsis thaliana accessions uniquely explains 5.0% of the dominant transcriptome expression axis, exceeding home-site environment at 2.6%.

• Why it matters: It remains unclear whether leading expression variation in natural plant populations reflects inherited ancestry rather than local environment, and whether such variation is heritable.
• What they did: The study integrated transcriptomes, genotypes, environmental records, and phenotypes from 665 accessions grown under one condition, estimating ancestry versus environment contributions and heritability of a cell-cycle/ribosome module (prolifME; h² = 0.19).
• The result: The ancestry-linked axis is tied to prolifME and four loci, associates with smaller plants in two independent experiments and slower growth under controlled conditions, and predicts leading expression axes across rice and maize via photosynthesis-associated gene weights.

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