Genome and transcriptome sequencing characterises the gene space of Macadamia integrifolia (Proteaceae)

The large southern plant family Proteaceae is an early-diverging eudicot lineage renowned for its morphological, taxonomic and ecological diversity. Macadamia is the most economically important Proteaceae crop and represents an ancient rainforest-restricted lineage. The family is a focus for studies of adaptive radiation due to the remarkable proliferation of species in mediterranean-climate biodiversity hotspots, and numerous evolutionary transitions between closed forest and open vegetation. Despite a long history of research, comparative analyses in the Proteaceae and macadamia breeding programs are restricted by a paucity of genetic information, and the composition of the Proteaceae genome is unknown. To address this we sequenced the genome and transcriptome of the widely grown Macadamia integrifolia cultivar 741.