New Domestic Organism Genome: The Sugar Beet

This Nature paper announces the genome sequence of the sugar beet, a domestic crop that provides ~30% of the world’s sugar. The completed sequence was ~567Mb with over 27,000 predicted genes and 3,000 predicted ncRNAs. The researchers used a combination of 454 and Illumina platforms, as well as Sanger sequencing. The functional categories of defense and response to stress were enriched among gene families showing gain and loss. Resequencing of the genomes of several other sugar beet specimens revealed large “variation deserts,” most likely reflecting domestication.