PRJNA524019
genome assembly and genome-wide Hi-C analysis
The three-dimensional architecture of chromosome is an important factor in response to environmental and developmental cues. To investigate the chromatin organization features of sesame (Sesamum indicum), we firstly achieved a chromosome-level sesame assembly using Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) long-read data combined with a genome-wide chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) approach. Based on the high quality reference genome, we interrogated the chromatin architecture features of sesame genome. The substructure units, such as A/B compartments, topologically associated domains (TADs) and chromatin loops were presented in sesame genome, similar to several other plant species. Moreover, we detected the alterations of chromatin organization of sesame seedlings in response to dark-treatment or between two varieties with different morphological properties. The conspicuous changes of chromatin architectures in both two cases suggested that chromatin organization was associated with the adaptation to environmental cues regardless of the short-time stimuli, such as dark-treatment or long-time adaptiveness as different characters between varieties (“Zhongzhi 13” and “Zhouhei 1”). A great number of significant differential contacts with a false discovery rate (FDR) of = 0.05 were identified from pairwise normal growth vs. dark-treated sesame seedlings, or “Zhongzhi 13” vs. “Zhouhei 1” varieties. However, the promoter of differentially expression genes (DGEs) were not obvious enrichment in the differential contact regions compared to background genes, implying that there should be an unknown relationship between DGEs and differential contact regions. These resources facilitate to unveil biological processes and improve agricultural technologies in sesame.