Genome-Wide Diversity Analysis using Wild Emmer Wheat Reference Assembly

Wheat is one of the founding crops of human civilization, domesticated about 10,000 years ago from wild emmer wheat (Triticum turgidum ssp. dicoccoides), an allotetraploid species with a genome that is about three times larger than the human genome. We have recently completed the first genome assembly of wild emmer that represents the most comprehensive polyploid wheat reference to date. The near-contiguous sequence assembly of all 14 chromosomes comprises 10.1 Gb and allowed a detailed analysis of DNA sequence variation in a set of wild and domesticated emmer wheat accessions using target enrichment by liquid phase whole exome capture sequencing. The results of this analysis illustrate the evolutionary history of domesticated emmer wheat and the implications for future crop improvement will be discussed.