TheGossypium stocksiigenome as a novel resource for cotton improvement

Abstract

Cotton is an important textile crop whose gains in production over the last century have been challenged by various diseases. Because many modern cultivars are susceptible to several pests and pathogens, breeding efforts have included attempts to introgress wild, naturally resistant germplasm into elite lines. Gossypium stocksii is a wild cotton species native to Africa, which is part of a clade of vastly understudied species. Most of what is known about this species comes from pest resistance surveys and/or breeding efforts, which suggests that G. stocksii could be a valuable reservoir of natural pest resistance. Here we present a high-quality de novo genome sequence for G. stocksii. We compare the G. stocksii genome with resequencing data from a closely related, understudied species (G. somalense) to generate insight into the relatedness of these cotton species. Finally, we discuss the utility of the G. stocksii genome for understanding pest resistance in cotton, particularly resistance to cotton leaf curl virus.

Recent progression and future perspectives in cotton genomic breeding

“…The assembly length of the latest version of the G. babardense genome is 2,210 Mb with a contig N50 of 9.24 Mb (Ma et al, 2021b). Genomes for G. anomalum (B 1 ) (Grover et al, 2021a;Xu et al, 2022), G. australe (G 2 ) (Cai et al, 2020), G. bickii (G 1 ) (Sheng et al, 2022), G. ekmanianum and G. stephensill (Peng et al, 2022), G. rotundifolium (K 2 ) (Wang et al, 2021b), and G. stocksii (E 1 ) (Grover et al, 2021b), were also sequenced and successfully assembled. These cotton genome sequences have the potential to provide powerful genomic markers and target genes for genomic selection in cotton.…”