A team of researchers from the Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, and the Amway Botanical Research Center has sequenced the genome of Chrysanthemum indicum (Indian chrysanthemum).
Chrysanthemums are flowering plants of the genus Chrysanthemum (family Asteraceae) native to Asia and northeastern Europe.
They are widely cultivated for ornamental, culinary, and medicinal uses throughout the world. For example, in Italy, chrysanthemum production covers 1,180 hectares with 437 million plants and continues to grow.
“Chrysanthemum is a highly evolved flowering plant that includes many cultivar varieties of the species,” says team member Dr. Jia Chen, Vice President of the Amway Botanical Research Center.
“The genus Chrysanthemum is a colossal taxonomic unit with many cultivar varieties of each species. Put it this way, the thousands of ornamental chrysanthemums seen at flower shows and in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are classified to the same species.
“We are very excited to learn more about what this means for our studies of Traditional Chinese Medicine plants and how to integrate these findings into future product development.”
Dr. Chen and colleagues determined that the Chrysanthemum indicumgenome has about 3 billion DNA base pairs — nearly the size of the human genome.
They also successfully identified 101,745 putative genes in the plant’s genome.
“The genome sequencing of Chrysanthemum indicum was accomplished through one of the most advanced sequencing technologies available — nanopore sequencing,” the researchers note.
In addition to the Chrysanthemum indicum genome, they sequenced and analyzed the transcriptome of another Chrysanthemum species, Chrysanthemum morifolim.
“The transcriptome information of an important commercial cultivar of Chrysanthemum morifolim will greatly benefit the further and in-depth study on Chrysanthemum by scientists around the world,” the scientists say.
Source: Sci-News
