Durum wheat genome highlights past domestication signatures and future improvement targets

The domestication of wild emmer wheat led to the selection of modern durum wheat, grown mainly for pasta production. We describe the 10.45 gigabase (Gb) assembly of the genome of durum wheat cultivar Svevo. The assembly enabled genome-wide genetic diversity analyses revealing the changes imposed by thousands of years of empirical selection and breeding. Regions exhibiting strong signatures of genetic divergence associated with domestication and breeding were widespread in the genome with several major diversity losses in the pericentromeric regions. A locus on chromosome 5B carries a gene encoding a metal transporter (TdHMA3-B1) with a non-functional variant causing high accumulation of cadmium in grain. The…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Agriculture
• ND
  North Dakota State University
• GC
  Genome Canada

  Award: CTAG2
• MO
  Ministry of Agriculture - Saskatchewan

  Award: CTAG2
• UO
  University of Alberta
• BF
  Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft

  Award: 2819103915
• GP
  Genome Prairie
• SW
  Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission
• AR
  Agricultural Research Service
• FF
  FP7 Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Biotechnology