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July 7, 2019  |  

Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments.

Authors: Varshney, Rajeev K and Shi, Chengcheng and Thudi, Mahendar and Mariac, Cedric and Wallace, Jason and Qi, Peng and Zhang, He and Zhao, Yusheng and Wang, Xiyin and Rathore, Abhishek and Srivastava, Rakesh K and Chitikineni, Annapurna and Fan, Guangyi and Bajaj, Prasad and Punnuri, Somashekhar and Gupta, S K and Wang, Hao and Jiang, Yong and Couderc, Marie and Katta, Mohan A V S K and Paudel, Dev R and Mungra, K D and Chen, Wenbin and Harris-Shultz, Karen R and Garg, Vanika and Desai, Neetin and Doddamani, Dadakhalandar and Kane, Ndjido Ardo and Conner, Joann A and Ghatak, Arindam and Chaturvedi, Palak and Subramaniam, Sabarinath and Yadav, Om Parkash and Berthouly-Salazar, Cécile and Hamidou, Falalou and Wang, Jianping and Liang, Xinming and Clotault, Jérémy and Upadhyaya, Hari D and Cubry, Philippe and Rhoné, Bénédicte and Gueye, Mame Codou and Sunkar, Ramanjulu and Dupuy, Christian and Sparvoli, Francesca and Cheng, Shifeng and Mahala, R S and Singh, Bharat and Yadav, Rattan S and Lyons, Eric and Datta, Swapan K and Hash, C Tom and Devos, Katrien M and Buckler, Edward and Bennetzen, Jeffrey L and Paterson, Andrew H and Ozias-Akins, Peggy and Grando, Stefania and Wang, Jun and Mohapatra, Trilochan and Weckwerth, Wolfram and Reif, Jochen C and Liu, Xin and Vigouroux, Yves and Xu, Xun

Pearl millet [Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone] is a staple food for more than 90 million farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, India and South Asia. We report the ~1.79 Gb draft whole genome sequence of reference genotype Tift 23D2B1-P1-P5, which contains an estimated 38,579 genes. We highlight the substantial enrichment for wax biosynthesis genes, which may contribute to heat and drought tolerance in this crop. We resequenced and analyzed 994 pearl millet lines, enabling insights into population structure, genetic diversity and domestication. We use these resequencing data to establish marker trait associations for genomic selection, to define heterotic pools, and to predict hybrid performance. We believe that these resources should empower researchers and breeders to improve this important staple crop.

Journal: Nature biotechnology
DOI: 10.1038/nbt.3943
Year: 2017

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