01676nas a2200277   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260001200043653000800055653000900063653000900072653003200081653001800113100001500131700001800146700001800164700001700182700001600199700001500215700001400230245012100244300001200365490000700377520100000384022001401384       2023                            d  c12/202310aFAD10aHiFi10aChia10apolyunsaturated fatty acids10atranscriptome1 aLeiting Li1 aJingjing Song1 aMeiling Zhang1 aShahid Iqbal1 aYuanyuan Li1 aHeng Zhang1 aHui Zhang00aA near complete genome assembly of chia assists in identification of key fatty acid desaturases in developing seeds.  a11027150 v143 a<p>Chia is an annual crop whose seeds have the highest content of α-linolenic acid (ALA) of any plant known to date. We generated a high-quality assembly of the chia genome using circular consensus sequencing (CCS) of PacBio. The assembled six chromosomes are composed of 21 contigs and have a total length of 361.7 Mb. Genome annotation revealed a 53.5% repeat content and 35,850 protein-coding genes. Chia shared a common ancestor with ~6.1 million years ago. Utilizing the reference genome and two transcriptome datasets, we identified candidate fatty acid desaturases responsible for ALA biosynthesis during chia seed development. Because the seed of contains significantly lower proportion of ALA but similar total contents of unsaturated fatty acids, we suggest that strong expression of two genes are critical for the high ALA content of chia seeds. This genome assembly will serve as a valuable resource for breeding, comparative genomics, and functional genomics studies of chia.</p>
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