Oil palm genome sequence reveals divergence of interfertile species in Old and New worlds

Singh, R., Ong-Abdullah, M., Low, E. T. L., Manaf, M. A. A., Rosli, R., Nookiah, R., Ooi, L. C. L., Ooi, S. E., Chan, K. L., Halim, M. A., Azizi, N., Nagappan, J., Bacher, B., Lakey, N., Smith, S. W., He, D., Hogan, M., Budiman, M. A., Lee, E. K., Desalle, R., Kudrna, D., Goicoechea, J. L., Wing, R. A., Wilson, R. K., Fulton, R. S., Ordway, J. M., Martienssen, R. A., Sambanthamurthi, R. (August 2013) Oil palm genome sequence reveals divergence of interfertile species in Old and New worlds. Nature, 500 (7462). pp. 335-339. ISSN 00280836

URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23883927
DOI: 10.1038/nature12309

Abstract

Oil palm is the most productive oil-bearing crop. Although it is planted on only 5% of the total world vegetable oil acreage, palm oil accounts for 33% of vegetable oil and 45% of edible oil worldwide, but increased cultivation competes with dwindling rainforest reserves. We report the 1.8-gigabase (Gb) genome sequence of the African oil palm Elaeis guineensis, the predominant source of worldwide oil production. A total of 1.535 Gb of assembled sequence and transcriptome data from 30 tissue types were used to predict at least 34,802 genes, including oil biosynthesis genes and homologues of WRINKLED1 (WRI1), and other transcriptional regulators, which are highly expressed in the kernel. We also report the draft sequence of the South American oil palm Elaeis oleifera, which has the same number of chromosomes (2n = 32) and produces fertile interspecific hybrids with E. guineensis but seems to have diverged in the New World. Segmental duplications of chromosome arms define the palaeotetraploid origin of palm trees. The oil palm sequence enables the discovery of genes for important traits as well as somaclonal epigenetic alterations that restrict the use of clones in commercial plantings, and should therefore help to achieve sustainability for biofuels and edible oils, reducing the rainforest footprint of this tropical plantation crop. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Item Type: Paper
Subjects: bioinformatics
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics
bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > genomes
organism description > plant
Investigative techniques and equipment > assays > whole genome sequencing
CSHL Authors:
Communities: CSHL labs > Martienssen lab
Depositing User: Matt Covey
Date: 15 August 2013
Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2013 19:58
Last Modified: 19 Jul 2021 15:13
PMCID: PMC3929164
Related URLs:
URI: https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/28592

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