The Gramene Database build 56 is out with 8 new plant genomes!

The Gramene Team is pleased to announce its release #56 with 2,075,925 genes and 53 reference plant genomes.  Of these genes, 1,892,629 are protein coding, and 1,703,219 genes are organized in 67,042 gene family trees. 

The eigth new genome assemblies in this release are: Cucumis sativus (cucumber), Dioscorea rotundata (white Guinea yam), Gossypium raimondii (cotton), Helianthus annuus (common sunflower), Lupinus angustifolius (blue lupin), Manihot esculenta (cassava), Nicotiana attenuata (coyote tobacco), and Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean).  In addition, newer assembly and gene annotation for sorghum NCBIv3 (see Phytozome for more details), soybean V3, and peach V2, as well as updated gene models for Japonica rice, were included in the release.  Try our updated assembly converter.

We are grateful to Dr. Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra of the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis for new transposable elements for maize.

As part of the regular Compara gene trees update across all plants, 26 new synteny maps and 33 new whole-genome alignments involving the new and updated genomes (example), as well as updated split gene predictions, are being released in this database build.

This release would not have been possible without a complete Ensembl software update to v91.  A complete description of the contents of the release is available in our release notes.  The genome databases were built in direct collaboration with Ensembl Plants and the Plant Reactome database was built in collaboration with the Reactome project.

Please let us know if you have questions or suggestions.

The Gramene Team