The highly complex sugarcane genome has finally been sequenced
Sugarcane was the last major cultivated plant to have its genome sequenced. This was because of its huge complexity: the genome comprises between 10 and 12 copies of each chromosome, when the human genome has just two. It was an international team coordinated by CIRAD that achieved this milestone, as reported in Nature Communication on 6 July. It will now be possible to "modernize" the methods used to breed sugarcane varieties. This will be a real boon to the sugar and biomass industry.
CIRAD and its partners had to use cunning to establish the first sugarcane reference sequence. The plant's genome is so complex that conventional sequencing techniques had proved useless. This meant that sugarcane was the last major cultivated plant to have its genome sequenced.
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Published: 13/07/2018