Anchoring and Ordering Wheat Genome Assemblies by Chromosome-Conformation Capture

Chromosome-conformation capture coupled with high-throughput sequencing (HiC) is a method to query the three-dimensional conformation of chromosomes in the nucleus. HiC proximity information in 3D space can be used to reconstruct the linear order of contigs and scaffolds of sequence assemblies. In this talk, I will report about the construction and validation of the HiC map of the genome sequence of wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides) assembled by NRGene’s DenovoMagic software. More than 95 % of the assembly (> 10 Gb) have been assigned to chromosomal locations and brought into a fully resolved linear order. Comparisons to a high-resolution genetic map of the emmer genome and gene space collinearity with the HiC map of barley support the high accuracy of both the HiC map and the genome assembly. Finally, preliminary HiC mapping results of an NRGene assembly of hexaploid bread wheat (T. aestivum) cv. Chinese Spring will be presented.