Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) develops India's first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere pigeonpea genome

Key facts

• Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) developed India's first fully annotated telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference genome of the pigeonpea variety 'Asha'.
• The genome assembly, designated NIPB_CcT2T_4, comprises 752.65 million base pairs assembled into 92 contigs and covers all 11 chromosomes including centromeres and telomeres.
• Comprehensive genome annotation identified 36,557 genes and 48,008 messenger RNAs, with transcriptome mapping recording more than 99.9 per cent read alignment.
• The T2T genome assembly has been deposited in the global database NCBI.
• Pigeonpea, popularly known as 'Arhar' or 'Tur', is one of India's most important pulse crops and a major source of dietary protein.
• ICAR had published the world's first draft genome of pigeonpea variety 'Asha' in 2011, the first crop genome sequenced entirely in India, followed by an improved draft genome in 2017.
• The fully annotated reference genome is expected to accelerate breeding of climate-resilient, high-yielding and nutritionally enriched pigeonpea varieties and support gene discovery, pangenome analyses, molecular breeding and genome-editing research.