Common bread wheat is globally one of the two most important crops and is third in economic importance in this country. A reference-quality genome sequence for wheat is an essential resource for advancing wheat genetics and breeding. The long-awaited sequence of the genome of bread wheat cultivar Chinese Spring (CS) was recently published by an international consortium of scientists. The CS cultivar has served as a genetic model since the 1950s, and the sequence of its genome is expected to serve as a reference for the wheat genome. Considering the large size of the wheat genome, which is five times the size of the human genome, the full sequence was a remarkable accomplishment. To fully leverage the value of the genome, this project continues improving the published genome by making use of recent technological advances that will further improve the sequence by filling gaps and resolving inconsistencies in the assembly. The sequence will be used to analyze the structure and evolution of the wheat genome and will be provided to others to identify and catalogue all of the genes in the sequence. The sequence will be made publicly available and will serve an excellent training ground for young scientists in genomics.
The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) recently published the assembly of the bread wheat cv Chinese Spring (CS) genome sequence (IWGSC RefSeq v1.0), to serve as a reference for the wheat genome. The sequence was a whole-genome-shotgun, short-read assembly with remaining gaps that could be filled by making use of long-read sequencing technology and of Bionano optical maps. To improve the sequence, the IWGSC RefSeq v1.0 pseudomolecules will be disassembled into scaffolds, and optical maps will be used to detect and resolve chimeric scaffolds, to anchor unassigned scaffolds, and to correct ambiguities in positions and orientations of scaffolds and super-scaffolds. A long-read assembly of the CS genome (Falcon Triticum 1.0) will be used to close gaps. Genetic and optical maps will be used to reconstruct the pseudomolecules of the 21 wheat chromosomes. The pseudomolecules will be employed in the analyses of structure and evolution of the wheat genome. The sequence will be made publicly available through a project website, and will be released to the NCBI and IWGSC databases. In collaboration with the IWGSC, genes will be reannotated in the new sequence. Awareness about the sequence will be disseminated on GrainGenes and via publications and presentations in scientific meetings. The project will afford excellent training opportunities for postdoctoral scholars and young scientists carrying out the bioinformatics work.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
