The genome of jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis): A taxonomically isolated species that directs wax ester accumulation in its seeds

Drew Sturtevant; Shaoping Lu; Zhi-Wei Zhou; Yin Shen; Shuo Wang; Jia-Ming Song; Jinshun Zhong; David J Burks; Zhi-Quan Yang; Qing-Yong Yang; Ashley E Cannon; Cornelia Herrfurth; Ivo Feussner; Ljudmilla Borisjuk; Eberhard Munz; Guido F Verbeck; Xuexia Wang; Rajeev K Azad; Brenda Singleton; John M Dyer; Ling-Ling Chen; Kent D Chapman; Liang Guo

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aay3240

The genome of jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis): A taxonomically isolated species that directs wax ester accumulation in its seeds

Sci Adv. 2020 Mar 11;6(11):eaay3240. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay3240. eCollection 2020 Mar.

Authors

Drew Sturtevant^{1

2}, Shaoping Lu², Zhi-Wei Zhou^{2

3}, Yin Shen^{2

3}, Shuo Wang^{2

3}, Jia-Ming Song^{2

3}, Jinshun Zhong⁴, David J Burks¹, Zhi-Quan Yang³, Qing-Yong Yang³, Ashley E Cannon¹, Cornelia Herrfurth⁵, Ivo Feussner⁵, Ljudmilla Borisjuk⁶, Eberhard Munz⁶, Guido F Verbeck^{1

7}, Xuexia Wang⁸, Rajeev K Azad^{1

8}, Brenda Singleton⁹, John M Dyer⁹, Ling-Ling Chen^{2

3}, Kent D Chapman^{1

2}, Liang Guo²

Affiliations

¹ BioDiscovery Institute and Department of Biological Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
² National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
³ Hubei Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioinformatics, College of Informatics, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
⁴ Institute for Plant Genetics, Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf, NRW, Germany.
⁵ Department of Plant Biochemistry and Service Unit for Metabolomics and Lipidomics, Albrecht-von-Haller-Institute and Goettingen Center for Molecular Biosciences (GZMB), University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany.
⁶ Leibniz-Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
⁸ Department of Mathematics, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA.
⁹ USDA-ARS, US Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, Maricopa, AZ, USA.

Abstract

Seeds of the desert shrub, jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis), are an abundant, renewable source of liquid wax esters, which are valued additives in cosmetic products and industrial lubricants. Jojoba is relegated to its own taxonomic family, and there is little genetic information available to elucidate its phylogeny. Here, we report the high-quality, 887-Mb genome of jojoba assembled into 26 chromosomes with 23,490 protein-coding genes. The jojoba genome has only the whole-genome triplication (γ) shared among eudicots and no recent duplications. These genomic resources coupled with extensive transcriptome, proteome, and lipidome data helped to define heterogeneous pathways and machinery for lipid synthesis and storage, provided missing evolutionary history information for this taxonomically segregated dioecious plant species, and will support efforts to improve the agronomic properties of jojoba.

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Caryophyllales* / classification
Caryophyllales* / genetics
Caryophyllales* / metabolism
Esters / metabolism
Genome, Plant*
Seeds* / genetics
Seeds* / metabolism
Waxes / metabolism*

Substances

Esters
Waxes
jojoba wax