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Largest genome assembly in Brassicaceae: retrotransposon-driven genome expansion and karyotype evolution in Matthiola incana
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Largest genome assembly in Brassicaceae: retrotransposon-driven genome expansion and karyotype evolution in Matthiola incana

Daozong Chen, Taihua Yang, Haidong Chen, Xiaohan Zhang, Fan Huang, Shubei Wan, Zhanjun Lu, Chao Liu, Yong Lei, Huifang Jiang, …
Plant biotechnology journal, Vol.23(9), pp.4109-4125
09/2025
PMID: 40569825
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Abstract

Hesperodae retrotransposons Cruciferae Lineage III genome assembly genome obesity
Matthiola incana, commonly known as stock and gillyflower, is a widely grown ornamental plant whose genome is significantly larger than that of other species in the mustard family. However, the evolutionary history behind such a large genome (~2 Gb) is still unknown. Here, we have succeeded in obtaining a high-quality chromosome-scale genome assembly of M. incana by integrating PacBio HiFi reads, Illumina short reads and Hi-C data. The resulting genome consists of seven pseudochromosomes with a length of 1965 Mb and 38 245 gene models. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that M. incana and other taxa of the supertribe Hesperodae represent an early-diverging lineage in the evolutionary history of the Brassicaceae. Through a comparative analysis, we revisited the ancestral Hesperodae karyotype (AHK, n = 7) and found several differences from the well-established ancestral crucifer karyotype (ACK, n = 8) model, including extensive inter- and intra-chromosomal rearrangements. Our results suggest that the primary reason for genome obesity in M. incana is the massive expansion of long terminal repeat retrotransposons (LTR-RTs), particularly from the Angela, Athila and Retand families. CHG methylation modification is obviously reduced in the regions where the highest density of Copia-type LTR-RTs and the lowest density of Gypsy-type LTR-RTs overlap, corresponding to the putative centromeres. Based on insertion times and methylation profiling, recently inserted LTR-RTs were found to have a significantly different methylation pattern compared to older ones.

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