Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments

Rajeev Varshney , Chengcheng Shi , Mahendar Thudi , Cédric Mariac (1) , Jason Wallace , Peng Qi , He Zhang , Yusheng Zhao , Xiyin Wang , Abhishek Rathore , Rakesh Srivastava , Annapurna Chitikineni , Guangyi Fan , Prasad Bajaj , Somashekhar Punnuri , Sushim Gupta , Hao Wang (2) , Yong Jiang , Marie Couderc , Mohan Katta , Dev Paudel , K Mungra , Wenbin Chen , Karen Harris-Shultz , Vanika Garg , Neetin Desai , Dadakhalandar Doddamani , Ndjido Kane (3) , Joann Conner , Arindam Ghatak , Palak Chaturvedi , Sabarinath Subramaniam , Om Yadav , Cécile Berthouly-Salazar , Falalou Hamidou , Jianping Wang , Xinming Liang , Jeremy Clotault (4) , Hari Upadhyaya , Philippe Cubry (5) , Bénédicte Rhoné (1, 6) , Mame Gueye , Ramanjulu Sunkar , Christian Dupuy (7) , Francesca Sparvoli , Shifeng Cheng , R Mahala , Bharat Singh , Rattan Yadav , Eric Lyons , Swapan Datta , C Tom Hash , Katrien Devos , Edward Buckler , Jeffrey Bennetzen , Andrew Paterson , Peggy Ozias-Akins , Stefania Grando , Jun Wang (8) , Trilochan Mohapatra , Wolfram Weckwerth , Jochen Reif , Xin Liu (9) , Yves Vigouroux (1) , Xun Xu

1 UMR DIADE - Diversité, adaptation, développement des plantes
2 NACHOS - Numerical modeling and high performance computing for evolution problems in complex domains and heterogeneous media
3 ISRA - Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles [Dakar]
4 IRHS - Institut de Recherche en Horticulture et Semences
5 URFM - Unité de Recherches Forestières Méditerranéennes
6 LBBE - Laboratoire de Biométrie et Biologie Evolutive - UMR 5558
7 IMAF - Institut des Mondes Africains
8 UME - Unité de Mécanique
9 State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals

Pearl millet [Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone] is a staple food for more than 90 million farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, India and South Asia. We report the ~1.79 Gb draft whole genome sequence of reference genotype Tift 23D2B1-P1-P5, which contains an estimated 38,579 genes. We highlight the substantial enrichment for wax biosynthesis genes, which may contribute to heat and drought tolerance in this crop. We resequenced and analyzed 994 pearl millet lines, enabling insights into population structure, genetic diversity and domestication. We use these resequencing data to establish marker trait associations for genomic selection, to define heterotic pools, and to predict hybrid performance. We believe that these resources should empower researchers and breeders to improve this important staple crop.

Keywords: Agricultural genetics; Next-generation sequencing

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]

Rajeev Varshney, Chengcheng Shi, Mahendar Thudi, Cédric Mariac, Jason Wallace, et al.. Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments. Nature Biotechnology, 2017, 35, pp.969-976. ⟨10.1038/nbt.3943⟩. ⟨hal-02516604⟩