Draft genome of the wheat A-genome progenitor Triticum urartu

Hong-Qing Ling,Shancen Zhao,Dongcheng Liu,Junyi Wang,Hua Sun,Chi Zhang,Huajie Fan,Dong Li,Lingli Dong,Yong Tao,Chuan Gao,Huilan Wu,Yiwen Li,Yan Cui,Xiaosen Guo,Shusong Zheng,Biao Wang,Kang Yu,Qinsi Liang,Wenlong Yang,Xueyuan Lou,Jie Chen,Mingji Feng,Jianbo Jian,Xiaofei Zhang,Guangbin Luo,Ying Jiang,Junjie Liu,Zhaobao Wang,Yuhui Sha,Bairu Zhang,Huajun Wu,Dingzhong Tang,Qianhua Shen,Pengya Xue,Shenhao Zou,Xiujie Wang,Xin Liu,Famin Wang,Yanping Yang,Xueli An,Zhenying Dong,Kunpu Zhang,Xiangqi Zhang,Ming-Cheng Luo,Jan Dvorak,Yiping Tong,Jian Wang,Huanming Yang,Zhensheng Li,Daowen Wang,Aimin Zhang & Jun Wang


Nature
DOI:10.1038/nature11997

Abstract

 

Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum, AABBDD) is one of the most widely cultivated and consumed food crops in the world. However, the complex polyploid nature of its genome makes genetic and functional analyses extremely challenging. The A genome, as a basic genome of bread wheat and other polyploid wheats, for example, T. turgidum (AABB), T. timopheevii (AAGG) and T. zhukovskyi (AAGGA^mA^m), is central to wheat evolution, domestication and genetic improvement¹. The progenitor species of the A genome is the diploid wild einkorn wheat T. urartu², which resembles cultivated wheat more extensively than do Aegilops speltoides (the ancestor of the B genome³) and Ae. tauschii (the donor of the D genome⁴), especially in the morphology and development of spike and seed. Here we present the generation, assembly and analysis of a whole-genome shotgun draft sequence of the T. urartu genome. We identified protein-coding gene models, performed genome structure analyses and assessed its utility for analysing agronomically important genes and for developing molecular markers. Our T. urartu genome assembly provides a diploid reference for analysis of polyploid wheat genomes and is a valuable resource for the genetic improvement of wheat.