PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jean-Marc Aury
AU  - Stefan Engelen
AU  - Benjamin Istace
AU  - Cécile Monat
AU  - Pauline Lasserre-Zuber
AU  - Caroline Belser
AU  - Corinne Cruaud
AU  - Hélène Rimbert
AU  - Philippe Leroy
AU  - Sandrine Arribat
AU  - Isabelle Dufau
AU  - Arnaud Bellec
AU  - David Grimbichler
AU  - Nathan Papon
AU  - Etienne Paux
AU  - Marion Ranoux
AU  - Adriana Alberti
AU  - Patrick Wincker
AU  - Frédéric Choulet
TI  - Long-read and chromosome-scale assembly of the hexaploid wheat genome achieves high resolution for research and breeding
AID  - 10.1101/2021.08.24.457458
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.08.24.457458
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/03/2021.08.24.457458.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/02/03/2021.08.24.457458.full
AB  - The sequencing of the wheat (Triticum aestivum) genome has been a methodological challenge for many years due to its large size (15.5 Gb), repeat content, and hexaploidy. Many initiatives aiming at obtaining a reference genome of cultivar Chinese Spring have been launched in the past years and it was achieved in 2018 as the result of a huge effort to combine short-read sequencing with many other resources. Reference-quality genome assemblies were then produced for other accessions but the rapid evolution of sequencing technologies offers opportunities to reach high-quality standards at lower cost. Here, we report on an optimized procedure based on long-reads produced on the ONT (Oxford Nanopore Technology) PromethION device to assemble the genome of the French bread wheat cultivar Renan. We provide the most contiguous and complete chromosome-scale assembly of a bread wheat genome to date. Coupled with an annotation based on RNA-Seq data, this resource will be valuable for the crop community and will facilitate the rapid selection of agronomically important traits. We also provide a framework to generate high-quality assemblies of complex genomes using ONT.Competing Interest StatementThe authors declare that they have no competing interests. Jean-Marc Aury received travel and accommodation expenses to speak at Oxford Nanopore Technologies conferences. Jean-Marc Aury and Caroline Belser received accommodation expenses to speak at Bionano Genomics user meetings.