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Article|07 Mar 2024|OPEN
Haplotype-resolved T2T reference genomes for wild and domesticated accessions shed new insights into the domestication of jujube
Kun Li1 ,† , Ruihong Chen2 ,† , Ayimaiti Abudoukayoumu1,3 ,† , Qian Wei1 , Zhibo Ma1 , Zhengyang Wang1 and Qing Hao3 , , Jian Huang,1 ,
1Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Forest Cultivation on the Loess Plateau, College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
2College of Horticulture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
3Institute of Horticulture Crops, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Urumqi 830091, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: haoqingxj@sohu.com,huangj@nwsuaf.edu.cn
Kun Li,Ruihong Chen and Ayimaiti Abudoukayoumu contributed equally to the study.

Horticulture Research 11,
Article number: uhae071 (2024)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhae071
Views: 1425

Received: 29 Jul 2023
Accepted: 28 Feb 2024
Published online: 07 Mar 2024

Abstract

Chinese jujube (Ziziphus jujuba Mill.) is one of the most important deciduous tree fruits in China, with substantial economic and nutritional value. Jujube was domesticated from its wild progenitor, wild jujube (Z. jujuba var. spinosa), and both have high medicinal value. Here we report the 767.81- and 759.24-Mb haplotype-resolved assemblies of a dry-eating ‘Junzao’ jujube (JZ) and a wild jujube accession (SZ), using a combination of multiple sequencing strategies. Each assembly yielded two complete haplotype-resolved genomes at the telomere-to-telomere (T2T) level, and ~81.60 and 69.07 Mb of structural variations were found between the two haplotypes within JZ and SZ, respectively. Comparative genomic analysis revealed a large inversion on each of chromosomes 3 and 4 between JZ and SZ, and numerous genes were affected by structural variations, some of which were associated with starch and sucrose metabolism. A large-scale population analysis of 672 accessions revealed that wild jujube originated from the lower reaches of the Yellow River and was initially domesticated at local sites. It spread widely and was then independently domesticated at the Shanxi–Shaanxi Gorge of the middle Yellow River. In addition, we identified some new selection signals regions on genomes, which are involved in the tissue development, pollination, and other aspects of jujube tree morphology and fertilization domestication. In conclusion, our study provides high-quality reference genomes of jujube and wild jujube and new insights into the domestication history of jujube.