The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium

Bread wheat, the staple food for 35% of the world’s population and the most widely produced crop, is one of the most important crop species. Genomics offers powerful tools for understanding the molecular basis of phenotypic variation as well as accelerating gene cloning, marker assisted selection, and more efficient exploitation of genetic diversity.

The International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC), with more than 1,100 members in 55 countries, is an international, collaborative consortium, established in 2005 by a group of wheat growers, plant scientists, and public and private breeders. The IWGSC aims to produce a high quality reference genome sequence for bread wheat.

To ensure the rapid delivery of new tools and resources to wheat breeders and scientists, a milestone-based, adaptable strategy, with short- and mid-term goals is used. The IWGSC is following a chromosome-specific approach to develop physical maps, draft sequences, and high quality sequencing of the Minimum Tiling Paths of mapped BAC clones and utilizing available whole genome data to achieve a gold standard reference sequence.

Survey sequences and the virtual gene order for all 21 chromosomes of the reference cultivar, Chinese Spring were published in July 2014 and upgrades based on improved whole genome sequencing, long read strategies and improved assembly algorithms are in preparation. Physical maps have been completed for all 21 chromosomes. Completion of the pseudomolecule sequence of chromosome 3B in 2013 has set the standard for BAC-by-BAC sequencing that is under way for 13.5 chromosomes. An overview of the consortium activities will be presented.