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ARS Home » Midwest Area » East Lansing, Michigan » Sugarbeet and Bean Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #336757
Title: Analyzing the genomes of wild and cultivated beets

Author
item HIMMELBAUER, HEINZ - University Of Natural Resources & Applied Life Sciences - Austria
item BODRUG, ALEXANDRINA - University Of Natural Resources & Applied Life Sciences - Austria
item McGrath, Jon
item SCHULZ, BRITTA - Kws Saat Ag
item DOHM, JULIANE - University Of Natural Resources & Applied Life Sciences - Austria

Submitted to: Bioinformatics
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/22/2016
Publication Date: 9/1/2016
Citation: Himmelbauer, H., Bodrug, A., McGrath, J.M., Schulz, B., Dohm, J.C. 2016. Analyzing the genomes of wild and cultivated beets. Bioinformatics. 32:17.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Sugar beet is an important crop plant that accounts for roughly 25% of the world's sugar production per year. We have previously shown that sugar beet has a quite narrow genetic base, presumably due to a domestication bottleneck. To increase the crop ´s stress tolerance, the introduction of desirable traits from wild beets is required. As a first step, we have set out to characterize the genomes of sugar beet and its wild progenitor species, the sea beet. The genome of sugar beet was assembled from 454, Illumina and Sanger sequencing data, followed by integration with genetic and physical maps (Dohm et al., 2014). Efforts to further improve the sugarbeet reference assembly are still ongoing, capitalizing on long-read technologies as well as on an optical mapping approach. We have sequenced the genomes of several sea beet accessions from different geographical areas to sample the diversity of the species. Lastly, we have shortlisted beets of differing genetic background for genome sequencing. We expect our work to provide a solid foundation to decipher the genetic makeup of a species, with profound implications for basic plant research, and for molecular breeding.