Chromosome-level assembly and analysis of Camelina neglecta: a novel diploid model for Camelina biotechnology research

Abstract Camelina neglecta is a new diploid Brassicaceae species, which has great research value because of its close relationship with the hexaploid oilseed crop Camelina sativa . Here, we report a chromosome-level assembly of C. neglecta with a total length of 210 Mb. By adopting PacBio sequencing and Hi-C technology, the C. neglecta genome was assembled into 6 chromosomes with scaffold N50 of 29.62 Mb. C. neglecta has undergone the whole-genome triplication (γ) shared among eudicots and two whole-genome duplications (α and β) shared by crucifers, but it has not undergone a specific whole-genome duplication event. By synteny analysis between C. neglecta and C. sativa , we successfully used the method of calculating Ks to distinguish the three subgenomes of C. sativa and determined that C. neglecta was closest to the first subgenome (SG1) of C. sativa . Further, transcriptomic analysis revealed the key genes associated with seed oil biosynthesis and its transcriptional regulation, including SAD , FAD2 , FAD3 , FAE1 , ABI3 , WRI1 and FUS3 displaying high expression levels in C. neglecta seeds . The high representability of C. neglecta as a model species for Camelina- based biotechnology research has been demonstrated for the first time. In particular, floral Agrobacterium tumefaciens infiltration-based transformation of C. neglecta , leading to overexpression of CvLPAT2 , CpDGAT1 and CvFatB1 transgenes, was demonstrated for medium-chain fatty acid accumulation in C. neglecta seed oil. This study provides an important genomic resource and establishes C. neglecta as a new model for oilseed biotechnology research.