Examining the history and impact of gene content variation in sunflower

The proposed research will contribute to new resources for the sunflower genomics community including new draft genome assemblies and annotations for wild Helianthus annuus and an early domesticate. We will also test our hypothesis that copy number variation has been an important contributor to sunflower domestication, and by combining this knowledge with our gene expression datasets and published trait mapping datasets, we may highlight variants useful for further improvement of agronomic traits like yield, oil content, and stress resistance. Finally, this project will test whether the applications of optical mapping can be extended to identifying large chromosomal variants that distinguish pools of DNAs.

International Consortium on Sunflower Genomics - ICSG

The domesticated sunflower, Helianthus annuus L., is a global oil crop that has promise for climate change adaptation, because it can maintain stable yields across a wide variety of environmental conditions, including drought. Even greater resilience is achievable through the mining of resistance alleles from compatible wild sunflower relatives, including numerous extremophile species. The consortium has established a high-quality reference for the sunflower genome (3.6 Gb).

Genomics of Sunflower

The CNRGV is the partner of the genome sequencing project involving Canada, USA and France. In this project, the CNRGV will be in charge of the constructions of the new sunflower BAC libraries from the genotype HA412-HO. 3 BAC libraries will be constructed using 3 different enzymes (HindIII, EcoRI, and BamHI) in order to reach a 12 to 14 x coverage of the sunflower genome.