International Team Completes First Orchid Genome Sequence

An international collaboration led by scientists from China, Taiwan, and Belgium, has sequenced the genome of the orchid Phalaenopsis equestris, a favored parental plant in orchid breeding and the first sequenced representative of plants that perform photosynthesis using crassulacean acid metabolism.

The team generated more than 119 billion bases of sequence data, which it used to assemble a 1.086-billion-base draft assembly for P. equestris. They also generated RNA sequence data on the root, stem, leaf, and flower samples of P. equestris to aid in their annotation of the genome and gene expression profiling of the plant.

Nearly 5,700 P. equestris gene families overlapped with those found in rice, grapevine, and Arabidopsis thaliana. On the other hand, some 4,171 orchid genes appeared distinct from genes documented in a wide range of sequenced plants that included A. thaliana, black cottonwood, grapevine, rice, purple false brome grass, sorghum, maize, Physcomitrella patens moss, and sequenced green algae species.

The results of the sequencing study are published in Nature Genetics. For more details, read: https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing-technology/genome-sequencing-sows-seeds-understanding-conserving-orchids.