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Article|01 Apr 2020|OPEN
The chromosome-scale assembly of the willow genome provides insight into Salicaceae genome evolution
Suyun Wei ;;Tongming Yin1 , Suyun Wei2 and Yonghua Yang,3
1Key Laboratory for Tree Breeding and Germplasm Improvement, Southern Modern Forestry Collaborative Innovation Center, College of Forestry, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China
2College of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, China
3College of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

Horticulture Research 7,
Article number: 45 (2020)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-020-0268-6
Views: 1033

Received: 02 Sep 2019
Revised: 03 Feb 2019
Accepted: 07 Feb 2020
Published online: 01 Apr 2020

Abstract

Salix suchowensis is an early-flowering shrub willow that provides a desirable system for studies on the basic biology of woody plants. The current reference genome of S. suchowensis was assembled with 454 sequencing reads. Here, we report a chromosome-scale assembly of S. suchowensis generated by combining PacBio sequencing with Hi-C technologies. The obtained genome assemblies covered a total length of 356 Mb. The contig N50 of these assemblies was 263,908 bp, which was ~65-fold higher than that reported previously. The contiguity and completeness of the genome were significantly improved. By applying Hi-C data, 339.67 Mb (95.29%) of the assembled sequences were allocated to the 19 chromosomes of haploid willow. With the chromosome-scale assembly, we revealed a series of major chromosomal fissions and fusions that explain the genome divergence between the sister genera of Salix and Populus. The more complete and accurate willow reference genome obtained in this study provides a fundamental resource for studying many genetic and genomic characteristics of woody plants.