Oryza australiensis assembly

Oryza australiensis Domin. is an Australian wild relative of cultivated rice (O. sativa L.) that possesses agronomically important traits, therefore representing a largely untapped source of novel genes that may benefit future rice breeding. The O. australiensis genome is more than twice the size of the O. sativa genome due to an expansion of LTR retrotransposon families that have impeded the generation of a genome assembly for this species until recently. This study aimed to assemble a chromosome-level, haplotype-resolved, de novo Oryza australiensis genome using PacBio HiFi long read data. We investigated some of the genomic loci that are unique to this species, including those comprising potentially novel disease resistance genes.