Plant Pan-Genomics Comes of Age

A pan-genome is the nonredundant collection of genes and/or DNA sequences in a species. Numerous studies have shown that plant pan-genomes are typically much larger than the genome of any individual and that a sizable fraction of the genes in any individual are present in only some genomes. The construction and interpretation of plant pan-genomes are challenging due to the large size and repetitive content of plant genomes. Most pan-genomes are largely focused on nontransposable element protein coding genes because they are more easily analyzed and defined than noncoding and repetitive sequences. Nevertheless, noncoding and repetitive DNA play important roles in determining the phenotype and genome evolution. Fortunately, it is now feasible to make multiple high-quality genomes that can be used to construct high-resolution pan-genomes that capture all the variation. However, assembling, displaying, and interacting with such high-resolution pan-genomes will require the development of new tools.

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