Musa acuminata banksii

The selected accession, named 'Banksii' (PT-BA-00024) belongs to the subspecies of Musa acuminata spp. banksii native to south-east Asia in Papua New Guinea. Banksii-derived cultivars played a major role in the development of several important diploid and triploid cultivar groups that are now widely dispersed.

The initial draft genome assembly was a collaborative effort between Bioversity International and CIRAD. This project received technical support from BGI and financial backing from the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB).

This work led to the first version of the publication:

Rouard M, Droc G, Martin G, et al. 2018. "Three New Genome Assemblies Support a Rapid Radiation in Musa acuminata (Wild Banana)." Genome Biology and Evolution 10: 3129–3140.

Subsequently, the genome sequence underwent drastic improvement at the chromosomal level using self-crosses to increase homozygosity, with the release of version 2 of the genome assembly and gene annotation. This advancement was the result of a collaboration between Genoscope and CIRAD (UMR AGAP), with funding from ANR (France Génomique). The details of this research are documented in the upcoming publication:

Martin G, Istace B, et al., 2024. "Chromosome evolution in Musa species: Insights from genome assemblies of wild contributors to banana cultivars" (in review).