BGI said this week that it will re-sequence 1,008 soybean germplasm lines for the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology at the University of Missouri.
Under the agreement, BGI will provide library construction, five-fold whole-genome sequence coverage for each line, and all related bioinformatics analysis.
The project will begin with a 100-species pilot this year, and will potentially extend to between 5,000 and 10,000 lines.
The goal of the project is to identify genetic markers and better understand genetic variances to assist molecular breeding to enhance productivity, stress tolerance, and nutritional quality.
BGI previously sequenced the soybean genome as part of the 1,000 Plant and Animal reference genome project. For that project, 95 species have been sequenced and assembled, and a total of 540 species are either completed or in progress, including 152 plants and 388 animals.