The Sorghum bicolor reference genome: improved assembly, gene annotations, a transcriptome atlas, and signatures of genome organization

Sorghum bicolor is a drought tolerant C4 grass used for the production of grain, forage, sugar, and lignocellulosic biomass and a genetic model for C4 grasses due to its relatively small genome (approximately 800 Mbp), diploid genetics, diverse germplasm, and colinearity with other C4 grass genomes. In this study, deep sequencing, genetic linkage analysis, and transcriptome data were used to produce and annotate a high-quality reference genome sequence. Reference genome sequence order was improved, 29.6 Mbp of additional sequence was incorporated, the number of genes annotated increased 24% to 34 211, average gene length and N50 increased, and error frequency was reduced 10-fold to 1 per 100 kbp. Subtelomeric…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: FC02-07ER64494, -AC02-05CH11231, 07ER64494, DE-FC02-07ER64494, 05CH11231, DE‐SC0012629, DE‐AR0000596, AC02-05CH11231, DE-SC0012629, DE-AC02, BER DE-FC02-07ER64494, DE‐FC02‐07ER64494, DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02-
• JG
  Joint Genome Institute

  Awards: DE-AC02-05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231
• OO
  Office of Science

  Awards: BER DE-FC02-07ER64494, DE-FC02-07ER64494, FC02-07ER64494, AC02-05CH11231, -AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02
• GL
  Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center

  Awards: BER DE-FC02-07ER64494, DE-FC02-07ER64494, DE-AC02-05CH11231