Chromosomal characteristics of salt stress heritable gene expression in the rice genome

Background Gene expression is potentially an important heritable quantitative trait that mediates between genetic variation and higher-level complex phenotypes through time and condition-dependent regulatory interactions. Therefore, we sought to explore both the genomic and condition-specific characteristics of gene expression heritability within the context of chromosomal structure. Results Heritability was estimated for biological gene expression using a diverse, 84-line, Oryza sativa (rice) population under optimal and salt-stressed conditions. Overall, 5936 genes were found to have heritable expression regardless of condition and 1377 genes were found to have heritable expression only during salt stress. These genes with salt-specific heritable expression are enriched for functional terms associated with response to stimulus and transcription factor activity. Additionally, we discovered that highly and lowly expressed genes, and genes with heritable expression are distributed differently along the chromosomes in patterns that follow previously identified high-throughput chromosomal conformation capture (Hi-C) A/B chromatin compartments. Furthermore, multiple genomic hot-spots enriched for genes with salt-specific heritability were identified on chromosomes 1, 4, 6, and 8. These hotspots were found to contain genes functionally enriched for transcriptional regulation and overlaps with a previously identified major QTL for salt-tolerance in rice. Conclusions Investigating the heritability of traits, and in-particular gene expression traits, is important towards developing a basic understanding of how regulatory networks behave across a population. This work provides insights into spatial patterns of heritable gene expression at the chromosomal level.