W100 Uncovering the Ancestral Blocks Reveals the Hexaploid Genome of the Emerging Biofuel Crop, Camelina sativa

Date: Saturday, January 14, 2012
Time: 11:40 AM
Room: Royal Palm Salon 1-2
Isobel Parkin , Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Ravinder Singh , SKUAST-Jammu, India
Erin Higgins , Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Wayne E. Clarke , Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Venkatesh Bollina , Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saskatoon, SK, Canada
Due to a number of desirable agronomic attributes, including resistance to common crucifer pests and pathogens, and tolerance to abiotic stresses, Camelina sativa is being embraced as a viable oilseed with significant economic potential in the biofuel and bioproduct arena.  Camelina sativa (camelina) is known to be a close relative of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (lineage I) and a more distant one of the important vegetable oilseed crop, Brassica napus (canola) (lineage II), which should allow tools developed in these species to be exploited in camelina. However the detailed relationship between these three genomes has yet to be elucidated, and there are currently limited genetic or genomics resources available for this novel oilseed.  To meet this need and to support an on-going breeding program we have been developing molecular tools for camelina, which have included development of molecular markers distributed across the genome.  Illumina next generation sequencing of reduced representation libraries from the parents of a recombinant inbred mapping population allowed the identification of thousands of robust single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) that distinguished the parental lines.  A 768 Illumina GoldenGate SNP array was designed to assay two mapping populations and a genetic map was developed for C. sativa covering the 20 linkage groups.  By in silico mapping of the SNP loci to the A. thaliana genome it was possible to identify the ancestral blocks that had previously been found to define evolutionary relatedness among Brassicaceae species.  The replication and organization of the uncovered blocks indicated that C. sativa is relatively unique among lineage I Brassicacaeae species, with evidence of a triplication event mirroring that seen for Brassica diploids in lineage II.  This genome organization has implications for further crop improvement and provides additional insights into genome evolution within the Brassicaceae.