AUTHOR=Paril Jefferson , Pandey Gunjan , Barnett Emma M. , Rane Rahul V. , Court Leon , Walsh Thomas , Fournier-Level Alexandre 

TITLE=Rounding up the annual ryegrass genome: High-quality reference genome of Lolium rigidum

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.1012694

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2022.1012694

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=<p>The genome of the major agricultural weed species, annual ryegrass (<italic>Lolium rigidum</italic>) was assembled, annotated and analysed. Annual ryegrass is a major weed in grain cropping, and has the remarkable capacity to evolve resistance to herbicides with various modes of action. The chromosome-level assembly was achieved using short- and long-read sequencing in combination with Hi-C mapping. The assembly size is 2.44 Gb with N<sub>50</sub> = 361.79 Mb across 1,764 scaffolds where the seven longest sequences correspond to the seven chromosomes. Genome completeness assessed through BUSCO returned a 99.8% score for complete (unique and duplicated) and fragmented genes using the Viridiplantae set. We found evidence for the expansion of herbicide resistance-related gene families including detoxification genes. The reference genome of <italic>L. rigidum</italic> is a critical asset for leveraging genetic information for the management of this highly problematic weed species.</p>