A team of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain has deciphered the genome of the Mesoamerican common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), according to Spain’s Center for Genomic Regulation. The findings are reported in the current issue of the journal Genome Biology.
The center said 30,491 genes were identified in the genome and scientists also analyzed their expression patterns. “The sequence of the bean genome, both from the Andean variety, previously sequenced, and the Mesoamerican one, will definitively contribute to identify genes involved in disease resistance, drought and salt tolerance, nitrogen fixation, formation of reproductive cells and seed quality, among others,” said Roderic Guigó, coordinator of the Bioinformatics and Genomics programme at the Center for Genomic Regulation. In a second phase of the project, the genome of at least a dozen other varieties of beans and some of their close relatives will be sequenced. This will allow the identification of genes related to domestication.