In California, through a combination of high-throughput sequencing, high performance computing, and genetic mapping, DOE JGI researchers have derived a sequence assembly for the highly repetitive plant genome of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). The researchers pointed out that the strategy they developed and applied to the polyploidy species bread wheat is also applicable to any species, for as long as a mapping population can be constructed. The longer-term impact of this work is that this improved strategy for dealing with large and complex genomes (frequently characteristic of plants that, as potential biofuel feedstocks, are of major interest to DOE) will accelerate and advance the sequencing of, and exploitation of, plant genomes.
