Chromosome-scale genome assembly provides insights into rye biology, evolution and agronomic potential
Citation
Rabanus-Wallace, M.T., Hackauf, B., Mascher, M., Lux, T., Wicker, T., Gundlach, H., Baez, M., Houben, A., Mayer, K.F.X., Guo, L., Poland, J., Pozniak, C.J., Walkowiak, S., Melonek, J., Praz, C.R., Schreiber, M., Budak, H., Heuberger, M., Steuernagel, B., Wulff, B., Börner, A., Byrns, B., Čížková, J., Fowler, D.B., Fritz, A., Himmelbach, A., Kaithakottil, G., Keilwagen, J., Keller, B., Konkin, D., Larsen, J., Li, Q., Myśków, B., Padmarasu, S., Rawat, N., Sesiz, U., Biyiklioglu-Kaya, S., Sharpe, A., Šimková, H., Small, I., Swarbreck, D., Toegelová, H., Tsvetkova, N., Voylokov, A.V., Vrána, J., Bauer, E., Bolibok-Bragoszewska, H., Doležel, J., Hall, A., Jia, J., Korzun, V., Laroche, A., Ma, X.F., Ordon, F., Özkan, H., Rakoczy-Trojanowska, M., Scholz, U., Schulman, A.H., Siekmann, D., Stojałowski, S., Tiwari, V.K., Spannagl, M., Stein, N. (2021). Chromosome-scale genome assembly provides insights into rye biology, evolution and agronomic potential. Nature Genetics, [online] 53(4), 564-573. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41588-021-00807-0
Plain language summary
Rye is an exceptional climate-resilient cereal crop, used extensively to produce improved wheat varieties via introgressive hybridization and possessing the entire repertoire of genes necessary to enable hybrid breeding. Rye is grown in Canada in limited acreages and use especially in less productive soils. Rye is a cross-pollinated species and was only recently domesticated, thus giving cultivated ryes access to a diverse and exploitable wild gene pool. To further enhance the agronomic potential of rye, a chromosome-scale annotated assembly of the 7.9-gigabase rye genome was generated. The rye genome assembly was extensively validated using many different available resources. This novel rye genome assembly will help to accelerate further improvements of both rye and wheat.
Abstract
Rye (Secale cereale L.) is an exceptionally climate-resilient cereal crop, used extensively to produce improved wheat varieties via introgressive hybridization and possessing the entire repertoire of genes necessary to enable hybrid breeding. Rye is allogamous and only recently domesticated, thus giving cultivated ryes access to a diverse and exploitable wild gene pool. To further enhance the agronomic potential of rye, we produced a chromosome-scale annotated assembly of the 7.9-gigabase rye genome and extensively validated its quality by using a suite of molecular genetic resources. We demonstrate applications of this resource with a broad range of investigations. We present findings on cultivated rye’s incomplete genetic isolation from wild relatives, mechanisms of genome structural evolution, pathogen resistance, low-temperature tolerance, fertility control systems for hybrid breeding and the yield benefits of rye–wheat introgressions.