Extensive sequence divergence between the reference genomes of two elite indica rice varieties Zhenshan 97 and Minghui 63

Authors

Jianwei Zhang, Ling-Ling Chen, Feng Xing, David A. Kudrna, Wen Yao, Dario Copetti, Ting Mu, Weiming Li, Jia-Ming Song, View ORCID ProfileWeibo Xie, Seunghee Lee, Jayson Talag, Lin Shao, Yue An, Chun-Liu Zhang, Yidan Ouyang, Shuai Sun, Wen-Biao Jiao
Fang Lv, Bogu Du, Meizhong Luo, Carlos Ernesto Maldonado, Jose Luis Goicoechea, Lizhong Xiong, Changyin Wu, Yongzhong Xing, Dao-Xiu Zhou, Sibin Yu, Yu Zhao, Gongwei Wang, Yeisoo Yu, Yijie Luo, Zhi-Wei Zhou, Beatriz Elena Padilla Hurtado, Ann Danowitz
Rod A. Wing, and Qifa Zhang
 

Published online before print August 17, 2016, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1611012113

PNAS August 17, 2016

 

Abstract

Asian cultivated rice consists of two subspecies: Oryza sativa subsp. indica and O. sativa subsp. japonica. Despite the fact that indica rice accounts for over 70% of total rice production worldwide and is genetically much more diverse, a high-quality reference genome for indica rice has yet to be published. We conducted map-based sequencing of two indica rice lines, Zhenshan 97 (ZS97) and Minghui 63 (MH63), which represent the two major varietal groups of the indica subspecies and are the parents of an elite Chinese hybrid. The genome sequences were assembled into 237 (ZS97) and 181 (MH63) contigs, with an accuracy >99.99%, and covered 90.6% and 93.2% of their estimated genome sizes. Comparative analyses of these two indica genomes uncovered surprising structural differences, especially with respect to inversions, translocations, presence/absence variations, and segmental duplications. Approximately 42% of nontransposable element related genes were identical between the two genomes. Transcriptome analysis of three tissues showed that 1,059-2,217 more genes were expressed in the hybrid than in the parents and that the expressed genes in the hybrid were much more diverse due to their divergence between the parental genomes. The public availability of two high-quality reference genomes for the indica subspecies of rice will have large-ranging implications for plant biology and crop genetic improvement.

Oryza sativa | reference genomes | BAC-by-BAC | strategy transcriptome

Read full text at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1611012113

Date of publication:
2016