Adzuki bean genome draft completed by Chinese and foreign scientists

??? Chinese and foreign scientists reported on the 12th in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States that they have mapped the draft genome of the adzuki bean. This will help analyze adzuki bean traits at the genetic level and breed more new adzuki bean varieties.

Researchers from Beijing University of Agriculture and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and other institutions used second-generation sequencing technology to complete the sequencing of the entire adzuki bean genome and assembled a high-quality draft framework map of the adzuki bean genome. The results showed that the adzuki bean has more than 34,000 genes. The researchers also analyzed the evolutionary relationship between the adzuki bean genome and other known legume genomes, and the results showed that the adzuki bean is most closely related to the common bean.

The researchers sequenced and analyzed the genes of 49 samples of wild adzuki beans, semi-wild adzuki beans and cultivated adzuki beans, confirming that the relationship between semi-wild adzuki beans and cultivated adzuki beans is closer than that with wild adzuki beans, indicating that semi-wild adzuki beans are the initial farmers' varieties in the domestication process of the adzuki bean.

The adzuki bean differs from other legume crops such as soybean in that its fat content is very low, averaging only 0.59%, while its total starch content is relatively high, averaging 57.06%. By comparison, soybean has a starch content of 25.3%, while its fat content is as high as 22.5%. The new study shows that differences in the transcription levels of related genes led to these differences.

Professor Wan Ping of Beijing University of Agriculture, one of the study leaders, told Xinhua reporters: "The adzuki bean is a traditional Chinese minor grain crop, and its research foundation is weak. Through genome sequencing, assembly and gene annotation, this will promote the identification and cloning of genes for important agronomic traits in the adzuki bean and molecular breeding, raise the level of adzuki bean research in China, and accelerate the genetic improvement of the adzuki bean."

Wan Ping, Ling Hongqing of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Jun of BGI Research, and Rajeev Varshney of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics are the co-corresponding authors of the research report.

The adzuki bean, commonly known as red adzuki bean, red bean and so on, originated in China and was domesticated as early as 12,000 years ago. The adzuki bean is an ideal nutritional food with high protein, low fat and blood-nourishing properties. Its content of the 8 essential amino acids for the human body is 2 to 3 times that of cereal crops, and it is rich in B vitamins, minerals such as iron and calcium, and bioactive substances such as terpenoids, isoflavones and saponins. Modern medical research has found that the adzuki bean has effects such as lowering blood sugar, lowering blood lipids, aiding weight loss and fighting cancer.

China is the world's largest producer and exporter of adzuki beans, accounting for about 80% of the world's exports, with products sold to more than 30 countries and regions around the world.