Low-cost assembly of a cacao crop genome is able to resolve complex heterozygous bubbles

Autor: Joe Morrissey, J. Conrad Stack, Rebecca Valls, Juan Carlos Motamayor
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Horticulture Research, Vol 6, Iss 1, Pp 1-13 (2019)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2052-7276
58948066
DOI: 10.1038/s41438-019-0125-7
Popis: A sweet solution for studying cacao genetics Genomic insights from an efficient, low-cost DNA sequencing strategy could enable more sustainable cacao cultivation. Growing demand for chocolate is currently being satisfied by increasing land use. A richer understanding of this plant’s genome could enable development of more productive strains, and Juan Carlos Motamayor and colleagues at Mars Chocolate have demonstrated a method for rapidly collecting such data. Most sequencing platforms produce vast multitudes of short DNA sequences which must then be assembled into a final map—a particular challenge for cacao, whose genome contains complex repetitive regions that are tough to reconstruct. Using a newer platform known as MinION, which produces far longer sequence reads, Motamayor’s team assembled a detailed genome map for a widely-used cacao cultivar within months for under $5,000. This approach could facilitate genetic engineering efforts to improve crop performance.
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