1. Brief introduction

Established in 2020, aimed to developing the techniques of genomics, gene mining and biotechnology appliance for tropical crops, the center currently undertake several tasks including the national high technology research and development program of China, the major science and technology plan of Hainan province and national natural science foundation of China.

2. Centre organization

Dr. Jiabao Wang is the Center Director. Dr. Fei Qiao, Dr. Aiping Gao and Dr. Zhiying Li are the deputy director. 22 different research fields are of cell engineering group, functional gene mining and appliance group, seedling breeding group, etc. These are 12 researchers including 4 senior scientists and 6 doctors, one was entitled as ‘Nanhai Famous Scholar’ of Hainan province, and one entitled as ‘Leading Talent’ of Hainan province.

3. Centre orientation

Following the international developing progress, national strategy and acquirement of industrialization, we devote ourselves on developing of breeding methods, seedling propagating, new varieties demonstrating and popularizing, new germplasm creating, new varieties breeding, breeding plan designing, etc.

4. Research achievement

(1) The group completed the mango genome sequencing, assembly and annotation, the first done in the world. The chromosome-scale mango genome assembly has contig N50 of 3.5Mb, scaffold N50 of 17.6Mb, BUSCO mapping rate of 96%. Resequencing was done for elite mango germplasms, which suggested that China might be included in one of the diversity center of mango. Key genes involved in urushiol biosynthesis were identified, which were revealed to emerge as collective results of genome duplication, tandem replication and positive selection. In addition, genes related to pigment metabolism and anti-biotic stress were identified.

(2) Authorized 5 invention patents