One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants (Nature)

With a collaborative effort by multiple laboratories across the world, a database of transcriptomics data has been generated for 1124 species encompassing green plants, glaucophytes, and red algae. This extensive work referred to as onekp (one thousand plant transcriptomes) will aid in researchers to understand the functional diversity of gene families, species relationships among several others. This initiative has already led to multiple discoveries in the conservation and evolution of gene families in plant metabolism and development. The authors of this work have used single-copy genes to identify that expansion of gene families occurred before the evolution of green plant lineage and also the genome duplication that gives rise to complexity in gene function arise during the evolution of the green plant. Ultimately this large-scale data will enable researchers to utilize it for phylogenomics, species relation, gene functional analysis and also promote the development of new model organisms for studying gene functions. (Summary by Suresh Damodaran) Nature  10.1038/s41586-019-1693-2