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Genotyping by sequencing (GBS) is the recent approach of next-generation sequencing technique for discovering and genotyping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in crop species. Genotypic variation studies (SNPs and insertion-deletions/InDels) were performed using four rice lines based on GBS data by aligning to the reference genome Nipponbare. Local aromatic rice landrace Tulaipanji was crossed with Ranjit, and two distinct lines were identified from the progenies: one line with awns and aroma traits and the other without awns and aroma. Total number of SNPs and InDels identified were 52 810 and 4 327 at read depth 10, respectively. Out of the total polymorphic SNPs/InDels, 16 490 were intergeneric, 7 812 were inside gene, and 4 435 were intronic. Phylogenetically, Tulaipanji was closer to the reference genome nipponbare. Based on recurrent parent genome analysis, out of 10 013 alleles, 92.52% was introgressed into progeny-awn from Tulaipanji and 7.48% from Ranjit, whereas progeny-awnless carried 89.19% alleles from Ranjit and only 10.81% alleles from Tulaipanji. In addition, progeny-awn was the highest heterozygous (83.88%) and progeny-awnless was the least (2.24%) at this fifth generation of recombinant inbred lines. These SNP variations may be linked to the phenotypic traits and can be utilized in crop improvement through linkage mapping. These results suggest that adding a high density of SNP markers to a mapping or breeding population through GBS has a great value for numerous applications in rice breeding and genetics research.

Brassica juncea (AABB; genome size ∼920 Mb), commonly referred to as mustard, is a natural allopolyploid of two diploid species – B. rapa (AA) and B. nigra (BB). We report a highly contiguous genome assembly of an oleiferous type of B. juncea variety Varuna, an archetypical Indian gene pool line of mustard, with ∼100x PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) reads providing contigs with an N50 value of >5Mb. Assembled contigs were corrected and scaffolded with BioNano optical mapping. Three different linkage maps containing a large number of GBS markers were developed and used to anchor scaffolds/contigs to the 18 linkage groups of B. juncea. The resulting chromosome-scale assembly is a significant improvement over the previous draft assembly of B. juncea Tumida, a vegetable type of mustard. The assembled genome was characterized for transposons, centromeric repeats, gene content, and gene block associations. Both A and B genomes contain highly fragmented gene block arrangements. In comparison to the A genome, the B genome contains a significantly higher content of LTR/Gypsy retrotransposons, distinct centromeric repeats and a large number of B. nigra specific gene clusters that break the gene collinearity between the A and the B genomes. The genome assembly reported here will provide a fillip to the breeding work on oleiferous types of mustard that are grown extensively in the dry land areas of South Asia and elsewhere.