Yunxia Chen , Dan Luo , Hangming Lin

Tropical Legume Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
Author    Correspondence author
Legume Genomics and Genetics, 2025, Vol. 16, No. 2   
Received: 12 Jan., 2025    Accepted: 27 Feb., 2025    Published: 16 Mar., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mung bean (Vigna radiata) is an important edible and forage legume crop and has a wide history of cultivation and consumption in Asia and other regions. Wild mung beans, as a close relative of cultivated mung beans, retain rich genetic diversity and are of great value for studying the domestication process and genetic improvement of mung beans. This study, based on whole-genome resequencing and comparative analysis, systematically analyzed the genomic structure, gene family evolution, genetic diversity and population structure of wild and cultivated mung beans. The results show that the genome of cultivated mung beans has undergone significant structural variations compared to the wild type, including the expansion and contraction of some gene families. Population genetic analysis indicates that mung beans experienced significant genetic bottlenecks during domestication, leading to a decline in SNP and InDel diversity in cultivated varieties. Meanwhile, comparative analysis revealed that a number of key genes related to flowering period, seed size, nutritional quality and stress resistance presented differential selection signals between wild and cultivated mung beans. Further gene function annotation and pathway analysis suggest that these genes may have played a significant role in the adaptive evolution and cultivation improvement of mung beans. This study established a genomic comparison framework between wild and cultivated mung beans, providing new evidence for understanding the domestication mechanism of legume crops and offering a strong reference for molecular breeding and genetic improvement of mung beans.

Mung beans; Comparative genomics; Genetic diversity; Domestication; Molecular breeding