Annotation:
Increasing the proportion of locally produced plant protein in currently meat-rich
diets could substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and loss of biodiversity1.
However, plant protein production is hampered by the lack of a cool-season legume
equivalent to soybean in agronomic value2. Faba bean (
Vicia faba L.) has a high yield
potential and is well suited for cultivation in temperate regions, but genomic
resources are scarce. Here, we report a high-quality chromosome-scale assembly
of the faba bean genome and show that it has expanded to a massive 13 Gb in size
through an imbalance between the rates of amplification and elimination of
retrotransposons and satellite repeats. Genes and recombination events are evenly
dispersed across chromosomes and the gene space is remarkably compact
considering the genome size, although with substantial copy number variation driven
by tandem duplication. Demonstrating practical application of the genome sequence,
we develop a targeted genotyping assay and use high-resolution genome-wide
association analysis to dissect the genetic basis of seed size and hilum colour. The
resources presented constitute a genomics-based breeding platform for faba bean,
enabling breeders and geneticists to accelerate the improvement of sustainable
protein production across the Mediterranean, subtropical and northern temperate
agroecological zones.
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