Shifting the limits in wheat research and breeding using a fully annotated reference genome

Science. 2018 Aug 17;361(6403):eaar7191. doi: 10.1126/science.aar7191. Epub 2018 Aug 16.

Abstract

An annotated reference sequence representing the hexaploid bread wheat genome in 21 pseudomolecules has been analyzed to identify the distribution and genomic context of coding and noncoding elements across the A, B, and D subgenomes. With an estimated coverage of 94% of the genome and containing 107,891 high-confidence gene models, this assembly enabled the discovery of tissue- and developmental stage-related coexpression networks by providing a transcriptome atlas representing major stages of wheat development. Dynamics of complex gene families involved in environmental adaptation and end-use quality were revealed at subgenome resolution and contextualized to known agronomic single-gene or quantitative trait loci. This community resource establishes the foundation for accelerating wheat research and application through improved understanding of wheat biology and genomics-assisted breeding.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Atlases as Topic
  • Bread
  • Breeding*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental*
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Plant*
  • Genome, Plant*
  • Molecular Sequence Annotation
  • Multigene Family
  • Phylogeny
  • Quantitative Trait Loci
  • Reference Standards
  • Transcriptome
  • Triticum / anatomy & histology
  • Triticum / classification
  • Triticum / genetics*
  • Triticum / growth & development*