Given the limited arable land in China, significantly improving the yield and quality of crops is an imperative strategy to ensure agricultural security and promote agricultural economy. With the utilization of agricultural big data and modern biotechnologies, an increasing number of species are entering the era of Breeding 4.0, where precision designed breeding is implemented, represented by the decoding of T2T (telomere-to-telomere) complete genomes and T2T pan-genomes. Following the first unraveling of the gapless T2T genome of watermelon, the teams led by Hang He and Xing Wang Deng from the Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences and Shandong Laboratory of Weifang Advanced Agricultural Sciences in Weifang, in cooperation with Wuhan Botanical Garden, published a research paper in Molecular Plant titled "Two haplotype-resolved, gap-free genome assemblies of Actinidia latifolia and Actinidia chinensis shed light on regulation mechanisms of vitamin C and sucrose metabolism in kiwifruit". This research reported the gapless T2T genomic maps of Actinidia latifolia and Actinidia chinensis and integrated genomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic analysis to deeply mine the genes regulating kiwifruit quality, providing invaluable resources for the investigation of functional genes and molecular breeding in kiwi.

Gapless Genomic Maps of Chinese Kiwi and Broad-leafed Kiwi