First Peanut Genome Sequencing May Lead to More Sustainable Varieties

23 May 2014 --- The International Peanut Genome Initiative (IPGI), a multinational group of crop geneticists working in cooperation for several years, has successfully sequenced the genome of the peanut. The new peanut genome sequence will be available to researchers and plant breeders across the globe to aid in the breeding of more productive, sustainable and more resilient peanut varieties.

This breakthrough will allow more rapid development of peanuts with traits that match changing consumer demands, offering the promise of new varieties - through natural plant breeding - in five years instead of the current 10 to 15 years.

Furthermore, many of the healthy traits of peanuts can be improved to increase them as needed; more and better protein, oil chemistry that matches olive oil, higher levels of antioxidants, higher levels of certain vitamins, and changes in the shape and sizes of the peanut itself, according to the IPGI.

As an added bonus, the development of peanuts that are naturally disease resistant will not only reduce the use of pesticides in developing countries but also present the potential for yields in developing countries to be increased 10-fold, helping to address hunger and malnourishment in many impoverished nations.

Scott Jackson, director of the University of Georgia (UGA) Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, serves as chair of the International Peanut Genome Initiative.

“The peanut crop is important in the United States, but it’s very important for developing nations as well,” Jackson said. “In many areas, it is a primary calorie source for families and a cash crop for farmers.”

According to plant geneticist Rajeev Varshney of India, “improving peanut varieties to be more drought, insect and disease resistant, using the genome sequence, can help farmers in developed nations produce more peanuts with fewer pesticides and other chemicals and help farmers in developing nations feed their families and build more-secure livelihoods”

The peanut grown in fields today is the result of a natural cross between two wild species, Arachis duranensis and Arachis ipaensis that occurred in the north of Argentina between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Because its ancestors were two different species, today’s peanut is a tetraploid, meaning the species carries two separate genomes which are designated A and B sub-genomes.

University of California, Davis genome researchers Lutz Froenicke and Richard Michelmore are optimistic that these genome sequences will serve as a guide for the assembly of the cultivated peanut genome that will help to decipher genomic changes that led to peanut domestication, which was marked by increases in seed size and plant growth habit.