BioProject

Cannabis sativa has been cultivated for over 10,000 years for fiber, seed and medicinal purposes, and has experienced intensive breeding over the past 50 years. While now widely considered one species, C. sativa has historically been broken into three species, C. sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis; these same specific epithets can also be found referenced in the literature at the subspecies and variety levels. Despite confusing taxonomy, the ruderalis distinction has commonly been described as being the origin of the day-neutral flowering phenotype, colloquially referred to as autoflower. Cannabis is legally categorized as hemp or marijuana based on the latter having greater than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. Cannabis classified as hemp may have higher relative proportions of the medicinally relevant cannabinoids cannabidiol (CBD) or cannabigerol (CBG). More...

Cannabis sativa has been cultivated for over 10,000 years for fiber, seed and medicinal purposes, and has experienced intensive breeding over the past 50 years. While now widely considered one species, C. sativa has historically been broken into three species, C. sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis; these same specific epithets can also be found referenced in the literature at the subspecies and variety levels. Despite confusing taxonomy, the ruderalis distinction has commonly been described as being the origin of the day-neutral flowering phenotype, colloquially referred to as autoflower. Cannabis is legally categorized as hemp or marijuana based on the latter having greater than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. Cannabis classified as hemp may have higher relative proportions of the medicinally relevant cannabinoids cannabidiol (CBD) or cannabigerol (CBG). More broadly, cannabis plants are categorized by chemical phenotypes based on dominant cannabinoid content: type I (THC), type II (THC and CBD in approximately equal proportions), type III (CBD), type IV (CBG), and type V (cannabinoid-free). Cannabis can be either monecious or diecious; both are commercially utilized depending on the agronomic system. The diploid genome has ten chromosomes with a haploid (1n) genome size of an estimated 750 megabases (mb), but the extensive and relatively young complement of transposable elements (TEs) has made accurate genome assembly challenging. We have generated 150 high quality chromosome scale assemblies of C. sativa, many haplotype-resolved and some fully phased, representing plants that are: types I-V; monecious and diecious; daylength sensitive, day-neutral; hemp, feral collections, and elite marijuana lines, whose origins span from the 1980s through the early 2000s; and trios from an active breeding program (Oregon CBD). Moreover, we include eleven (nine male and two female) high quality reference level assemblies from publicly available germplasm housed at the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Hemp Germplasm Collection. All USDA-ARS accessions are available as seed for researchers via the Germplasm Resource Information Network (GRIN) for further experimentation. Less...