Overview

The research at the Plant and Animal Genomics Programme is mainly focused on understanding the organization, evolution and variability of the genomes of crops and domestic animals, unveiling their domestication process and elucidating the genetic basis of traits important for crop and livestock improvement.

The Programme is structured in six research groups, which routinely use a wide range of genetic, genomic, paleogenomic, bioinformatic, statistical, population genetics and phenotypic approaches in crops such as melon, peach, apple, strawberry and wheat, and livestock species such as pig and goat, among others. We develop bioinformatics methodologies and software tools for genome data analysis. We also apply gene editing technologies for the functional validation of candidate genes for traits of interest. 

The main objective of the Plant and Animal Genomics Programme is translating genomic information into phenotypes, for this reason some of our research activities are applied to commercial breeding programmes in collaboration with private companies and public institutions.

Publications

Fiol A., Jurado-Ruiz F., Garcıá S., Dujak C., López-Girona E., Pacheco I., Infante R., Aranzana M.J.

An LTR retrotransposon may activate the PsMYB10.2 gene expression and promote anthocyanin biosynthesis in the fruit flesh of Japanese plum – a success story of CRISPR-Cas9 enrichment sequencing strategy (2023) Acta Horticulturae, (1362), pp. 15 -19 (DOI:10.17660/ActaHortic.2023.1362.3)

Duval H., Coindre E., Ramos-Onsins S.E., Alexiou K.G., Rubio-Cabetas M.J., Martínez-García P.J., Wirthensohn M., Dhingra A., Samarina A., Arús P.

Development and Evaluation of an AxiomTM 60K SNP Array for Almond (Prunus dulcis) (2023) Plants, vol. 12 (2), Art. number 242 (DOI:10.3390/plants12020242)

Valdés-Hernández J., Ramayo-Caldas Y., Passols M., Sebastià C., Criado-Mesas L., Crespo-Piazuelo D., Esteve-Codina A., Castelló A., Sánchez A., Folch J.M.

Global analysis of the association between pig muscle fatty acid composition and gene expression using RNA-Seq (2023) Scientific Reports, vol. 13 (1), Art. number 535 (DOI:10.1038/s41598-022-27016-x)

Zaracho N., Reig G., Kalluri N., Arús P., Eduardo I.

Inheritance of Fruit Red-Flesh Patterns in Peach (2023) Plants, vol. 12 (2), Art. number 394 (DOI:10.3390/plants12020394)