Genome structure of Jatropha curcas L.

The recent progress in DNA sequencing technology has allowed us to acquire information on the structures of whole genomes of various agronomically important plants in a relatively short period of time. In order to understand the genetic systems carried by Jatropha curcas and to accelerate the process of molecular breeding, comprehensive analyses of genes and the genome of this plant have been conducted using both conventional and advanced technologies, and a large quantity of sequence data has been accumulated. The latest draft sequence of the genome of J. curcas is 297 Mb long, and is presumed to cover 99 % of the gene space, with an average GC content of 33.8 %. By combining with the transcriptome information, a total of 30,203 protein-encoding genes, in addition to the 17,575 transposon-related genes and 2,124 putative pseudogenes, were assigned to the genome. Information on the genomic sequences and genes is available at http://www.kazusa.or.jp/jatropha/.