Canola Pan-Genome Completed; Reveals Broad Genetic Diversity of the Crop

The International Canola Pan-genome Consortium, an international group of leading academic and commercial companies from the USA, Canada, Europe, and Israel has announced the successful completion of the canola/rapeseed pan-genome.

The international consortium generated a full genome sequence of 12 canola and rapeseed varieties that were assembled using NRGene's DeNovoMAGIC™ software. Each genome was built from about one billion DNA chemical elements and differs on average from other genomes in 40 percent of the DNA elements. These differences in the genetic content are responsible for the unique field performance of each variety.

The global consortium was led jointly by Dr. Isobel Parkin from the Government of Canada's Agriculture & Agri-food Canada, Dr. Andrew Sharpe from the Global Institute for Food Security at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, and NRGene, a leading genomic Artificial Intelligence company based in Israel. The consortium included key players in the canola industry, among them Bayer, Corteva Agriscience, Nutrien Ag Solutions, and Nuseed. Each contributed their own canola lines to the research and received the full pan-genome comparison results. The canola pan-genome will be available to the entire canola breeding and research community to accelerate the genetic understanding of this important crop.

For more details, read the news releases from the University of Saskatchewan and NRGene.