High-Quality de novo Genome Assembly of Huajingxian 74, a Receptor Parent of Single Segment Substitution Lines

Rice(Oryza sativa L.)is grown nearly worldwide and provides the staple food for more than half of the global population(Luo et al,2017).The genomes of several cultivated rice varieties including Nipponbare(NPB)(Kawahara et al,2013;Sakai et al,2013),IR64(Tanaka et al,2020),93-11(Zhang et al,2018)and R498(Du et al,2017)at chromosome level,and Minghui 63 and Zhenshan 97(Zhang et al,2016)at scaffold level have been assembled,annotated and released,among which the R498 and NPB genomes are widely used as reference genomes in rice research.However,there are thousands of rice cultivars,landraces and wild rice varieties in the world with dramatically different genetic backgrounds,and the genomes of native rice varieties in South China,which is one of the major rice production areas in China,have not been de novo assembled.Huajingxian 74(HJX74)is an indica rice variety bred in South China Agricultural University,Guangdong Province with widely environmental adaptability and high yield(www.ricedata.cn/variety/varis/602548.htm).HJX74 exhibits significant phenotypic and genetic differences from those varieties whose whole genomes have been properly sequenced and assembled(Fig.1).