How to Survive in the World's Third Poplar: Insights from the Genome of the Highest Altitude Woody Plant, (Elaeagnaceae)

(Tibetan sea-buckthorn) is one of the highest distributed woody plants in the world (3,000-5,200 meters a.s.l.). It is characterized by adaptation to extreme environment and important economic values. Here, we combined PacBio Hifi platform and Hi-C technology to assemble a 1,452.75 Mb genome encoding 33,367 genes with a Contig N50 of 74.31 Mb, and inferred its sexual chromosome. Two -specific whole-genome duplication events (18.7-21.2 million years ago, Ma; 28.6-32.4 Ma) and long terminal repeats retroelements (LTR-RTs) amplifications were detected. Comparing with related species at lower altitude, (<1, 700 meters a.s.l.), had some significantly rapid evolving genes involved in adaptation to high altitude habitats. However, comparing with (<3, 700 meters a.s.l.), no rapid evolving genes were found except microtubule and microtubule-based process genes, has a larger genome, with extra 2, 503 genes (7.5%) and extra 680.46 Mb transposable elements (TEs) (46.84%). These results suggest that the changes in the copy number and regulatory pattern of genes play a more important role for adapting to more extreme and variable environments at higher altitude by more TEs and more genes increasing genome variability and expression plasticity. This suggestion was supported by two findings: nitrogen-fixing genes of having more copies, and intact TEs being significantly closer genes than fragmentary TEs. This study provided new insights into the evolution of alpine plants.