Improved maize reference genome with single-molecule technologies

[Hunter]

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature22971.html

I bet you’re wondering… why would we care about maize? Maize is corn, after all.

But check out this new (dense) research paper, published today:

Here we report the assembly and annotation of a reference genome of maize, a genetic and agricultural model species, using single-molecule real-time sequencing and high-resolution optical mapping. Relative to the previous reference genome3, our assembly features a 52-fold increase in contig length and notable improvements in the assembly of intergenic spaces and centromeres.

In other words, a significant improvement (52x in fact) in genome reference mapping. Building entire reference genomes for researchers takes a long time as it currently stands. With these new technologies, they were able to

assembl[e] and annotat[e] … a reference genome of maize, a genetic and agricultural model species, using single-molecule real-time sequencing and high-resolution optical mapping.

That’s groundbreaking stuff – sequencing at the molecular level. And not only that, they were able to discover more genetic details than previous reference genomic maps.

Naturally, this technology will likely have application for all plants, including cannabis. Hurray the future!

[agrisciencetesting]

I love how you post about all scientific developments and how they are relevant to cannabis.

Thanks for what you do.