The genome sequence of the wild tomato Solanum pimpinellifolium provides insights into salinity tolerance
Wild relatives of domesticated plants, such as tomato, are valuable resource for breeding, but their genomes are often not very well sequenced. Razali et al. provide the first high-quality genome of wild tomato S.pimpinellifolium LA0480, and use Dragon Eukaryotic Analysis Platform to functionally annotate the genes. The comparison between cultivated tomato and LA0480 revealed that the wild tomato has a higher number of the genes involved in abiotic and biotic stress tolerance. The team identified inositol-3-phosphate synthase and ~phosphatase genes to be present in high copy number in wild tomato, which might contribute to the high salinity tolerance observed for the wild tomato. The importance of other genes that also show difference in copy number variation remains to be validated. (Summary by Magdalena Julkowska) bioRxiv
