Poaceae is a species-rich family of plants in the monocots harboring many important crop species. As grasses, these plants lack striking flowers that are typically pigmented by anthocyanins. Here, we...

### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Withanolides are plant steroids with potent bioactivities found in many medicinal plants including Withania somnifera, but their biosynthetic pathway is largely unknown. Here, the authors report the g...

Long-read sequencing has shown a rapid technological development during the last years. It has been established as the standard method for the sequencing of plant genomes and has also gained importanc...

Anthocyanins and betalains are plant pigments produced through different biosynthetic pathways and are generally considered mutually exclusive. We examine claims of their co-occurrence, arguing that ...

Long-read sequencing has shown a rapid technological development during the last years. It has been established as the standard method for the sequencing of plant genomes and has also gained importanc...

Scientific Reports - DupyliCate: mining, classifying, and characterizing gene duplications

BMC Genomics - Access to genome sequences is crucial to investigate and engineer traits in plants, explore biodiversity, and support phylogenetic studies. Over the last decade, affordable...

BMC Genomics - Access to genome sequences is crucial to investigate and engineer traits in plants, explore biodiversity, and support phylogenetic studies. Over the last decade, affordable...

Paralogs, copies of a gene, form an important basis for novelty during evolution. Analysis of such gene duplications is important to understand the emergence of novel traits during evolution. DupyliCa...

While the size of chromosomes can be measured under a microscope, obtaining the exact size of a genome remains a challenge. Biochemical methods and k-mer distribution-based approaches allow only estimations. An alternative approach to estimate the genome size based on high contiguity assemblies and read mappings is presented here. Analyses of Arabidopsis thaliana and Beta vulgaris data sets are presented to show the impact of different parameters. Oryza sativa, Brachypodium distachyon, Solanum lycopersicum, Vitis vinifera, and Zea mays were also analyzed to demonstrate the broad applicability of this approach. Further, MGSE was also used to analyze Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Caenorhabditis elegans datasets to show its utility beyond plants. Mapping-based Genome Size Estimation (MGSE) and additional scripts are available on GitHub: https://github.com/bpucker/MGSE . MGSE predicts genome sizes based on short reads or long reads requiring a minimal coverage of 5-fold.

In this study, we investigate the genetic mechanisms responsible for the loss of anthocyanins in betalain-pigmented Caryophyllales, considering our hypothesis of multiple transitions to betalain pig.....

The genome of the cornflower (Centaurea cyanus ) was sequenced with long reads (ONT) to reveal the full sequences of genes in the flavonoid biosynthesis. Of particular interest are genes responsible f...