Xinyi Wu, Zhongyuan Hu, Yan Zhang, Mao Li, Nanqiao Liao, Junyang Dong, Baogen Wang, Jian Wu, Xiaohua Wu, Ying Wang, Jian Wang, Zhongfu Lu, Yi Yang, Yuyan Sun, Wenqi Dong, Mingfang Zhang, Guojing Li
Cowpeas (tropical legumes) are important in ensuring food and nutritional security in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Herein, we report two high-quality genome assemblies of grain and vegetable cowpeas and we re-sequenced 344 accessions to characterize the genomic variations landscape. We identified 39 loci for ten important agronomic traits and more than 541 potential loci that underwent selection during cowpea domestication and improvement. In particular, the synchronous selections of the pod-shattering loci and their neighboring stress-relevant loci probably led to the enhancement of pod-shattering resistance and the compromise of stress resistance during the domestication from grain to vegetable cowpeas...
April 22, 2024: Nature Genetics