A 160 Gbp fork fern genome shatters size record for eukaryotes
Pol Fernández,
Rémy Amice,
David Bruy,
Maarten J.M. Christenhusz,
Ilia J. Leitch,
Andrew L. Leitch,
Lisa Pokorny,
Oriane Hidalgo,
Jaume Pellicer
Affiliations
Pol Fernández
Institut Botànic de Barcelona (IBB), CSIC-CMCNB, Passeig del Migdia s.n, 08038 Barcelona, Spain; Facultat de Farmàcia i Ciències de l’alimentació, Campus Diagonal, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. de Joan XXIII, 27-31, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Rémy Amice
Independent researcher, Nouméa, New Caledonia
David Bruy
AMAP, IRD, Herbier de Nouvelle-Calédonie, Nouméa 98848, New Caledonia; UMR AMAP, Université de Montpellier, IRD, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, F-34000 Montpellier, France
Maarten J.M. Christenhusz
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE, UK; Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, 6845 Perth, WA, Australia
Ilia J. Leitch
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE, UK
Andrew L. Leitch
School of Biological and Behavioral Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK
Lisa Pokorny
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE, UK; Real Jardín Botánico (RJB-CSIC), Plaza de Murillo 2, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Oriane Hidalgo
Institut Botànic de Barcelona (IBB), CSIC-CMCNB, Passeig del Migdia s.n, 08038 Barcelona, Spain; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE, UK
Jaume Pellicer
Institut Botànic de Barcelona (IBB), CSIC-CMCNB, Passeig del Migdia s.n, 08038 Barcelona, Spain; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond TW9 3AE, UK; Corresponding author
Summary: Vascular plants are exceptional among eukaryotes due to their outstanding genome size diversity which ranges ∼2,400-fold, including the largest genome so far recorded in the angiosperm Paris japonica (148.89 Gbp/1C). Despite available data showing that giant genomes are restricted across the Tree of Life, the biological limits to genome size expansion remain to be established. Here, we report the discovery of an even larger eukaryotic genome in Tmesipteris oblanceolata, a New Caledonian fork fern. At 160.45 Gbp/1C, this record-breaking genome challenges current understanding and opens new avenues to explore the evolutionary dynamics of genomic gigantism.
