Zea mays ssp. parviglumis Genome sequencing and assembly

Maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) was domesticated from the wild grass teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis) approximately 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Basin of southwest Mexico. The evolution of modern maize has involved extensive structural variation including gene loss and gene gain. Insights regarding these changes during domestication can be discovered by comparing the genomes of teosinte and maize. Characterization of these phenomena will improve our understanding of the domesticated phenotypes plant breeders fine-tune to improve maize production. However, to effectively compare maize and teosinte, high-quality teosinte genome assemblies must first be generated.