Amborella trichopoda Genome sequencing

The origin and early diversification of flowering plants (angiosperms) had profound impacts on Earth''s biota, providing the raw genetic material from which most crops and economically important plants were derived. The diversification of genes, genomes, and important traits cannot be adequately interpreted without a comparative evolutionary framework firmly rooted with genome sequences from basal angiosperms. As the sister species to all other extant flowering plants, Amborella trichopoda holds a singular position in the flowering plant tree of life for establishing this comparative genomics framework. Toward this goal, we have sequenced, assembled, and annotated the nuclear genome sequence of Amborella trichopoda using a combination of multi-platform whole genome shotgun sequencing, Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization (FISH), and genome-wide optical mapping. We also sequenced 12 additional individuals sampled from wild populations representing the native range of Amborella on New Caledonia. The Amborella Genome Sequencing Project is a collaborative NSF-funded project that seeks to produce a high-quality finished genome sequence that will serve as a reference in comparative evolutionary analyses to shed light on the genomic characteristics of the last common ancestor of extant flowering plants. Data are publicly available through the Amborella Genome Database, hosted at http://amborella.org.

被子植物（angiosperms）的起源与早期分化，对地球生物群落产生了深远影响，其提供的原始遗传物质是绝大多数农作物及具有重要经济价值植物的遗传来源。若缺乏以基部被子植物基因组序列为核心支撑的比较进化研究框架，便无法充分阐释基因、基因组以及重要性状的分化机制。作为所有现存其他开花植物的姊妹物种，无油樟（Amborella trichopoda）在被子植物生命之树中占据独一无二的地位，可为该比较基因组学框架的构建提供关键支点。为达成这一目标，研究团队结合多平台全基因组鸟枪测序、荧光原位杂交（Fluorescent In Situ Hybridization，FISH）以及全基因组光学图谱技术，完成了无油樟的核基因组测序、组装与注释工作。此外，研究团队还对采自新喀里多尼亚境内无油樟原生分布区野生种群的另外12个个体进行了测序。无油樟基因组测序项目是一项由美国国家科学基金会（NSF）资助的合作研究项目，旨在获取高质量的完整基因组序列，以此作为比较进化分析的参考基准，阐明现存被子植物最后共同祖先的基因组特征。相关数据可通过托管于http://amborella.org的无油樟基因组数据库公开获取。