The Camelina sativa “CAME” Genome Project

Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz is a stress tolerant oil seed crop, closely related to the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and to crops in the Brassicaeae family.  Camelina has great promise as a biofuels crop because it is productive on nutrient limited soils; it is tolerant of drought, cold, and high soil salinity; it has a short generation time allowing for multiple crops per year; and it has a is high seed weight to plant size ratio.  High levels of eicosenoic acid and C18 omega-3 fatty acids in Camelina seeds are suitable for bio-diesel and aviation fuels.  To provide a platform for further development of Camelina sativa for bioenergy and agriculture, we have produced a draft genome based on USDA GRIN seed accession PI 650140 (“CAME” source population).  We produced deep coverage (140Gb) of the estimated 800 Mb genome of Camelina using a combination of Illumina and Roche-454 Next Generation Sequencing technologies on single-end, 8Kb and 20 Kb paired-end, and 3Kb and 8 Kb mate-pair libraries, supported by comprehensive EST databases.  The Camelina “CAME” genome, which will be made available through public genome browsers, adds to the growing genomic resources for oilseed crops. This project is a collaboration of the Department of Bioenergy Science & Technology at Chonnam National University and the Schatz Center for Tree Molecular Genetics at Penn State.  The project is supported by the World Class University Project R31-2009-000-20025-0 funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of Korea.