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bioRxiv · 10.1101/407627

A Chromosome-level Sequence Assembly Reveals the Structure of the Arabidopsis thaliana Nd-1 Genome and its Gene Set

Abstract

BackgroundIn addition to the BAC-based reference sequence of the accession Columbia-0 from the year 2000, several short read assemblies of THE plant model organism Arabidopsis thaliana were published during the last years. Also, a SMRT-based assembly of Landsberg erecta has been generated that identified translocation and inversion polymorphisms between two genotypes of the species.\n\nResultsHere we provide a chromosome-arm level assembly of the A. thaliana accession Niederzenz-1 (AthNd-1_v2c) based on SMRT sequencing data. The best assembly comprises 69 nucleome sequences and displays a contig length of up to 16 Mbp. Compared to an earlier Illumina short read-based NGS assembly (AthNd-1_v1), a 75 fold increase in contiguity was observed for AthNd-1_v2c. To assign contig locations independent from the Col-0 gold standard reference sequence, we used genetic anchoring to generate a de novo assembly. In addition, we assembled the chondrome and plastome sequences.\n\nConclusionsDetailed analyses of AthNd-1_v2c allowed reliable identification of large genomic rearrangements between A. thaliana accessions contributing to differences in the gene sets that distinguish the genotypes. One of the differences detected identified a gene that is lacking from the Col-0 gold standard sequence. This de novo assembly extends the known proportion of the A. thaliana pan-genome.

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Pucker, B., Holtgraewe, D., Stadermann, K. B., Frey, K., Huettel, B., Reinhardt, R., Weisshaar, B.. 2018-09-06. A Chromosome-level Sequence Assembly Reveals the Structure of the Arabidopsis thaliana Nd-1 Genome and its Gene Set. https://doi.org/10.1101/407627

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