Horticultural crops play an important role in the lives of people as they provide various kinds of vegetables, fruits, ornamental plants and herbal medicines. Therefore, improving the traits of horticultural crops has important implications for environmental aesthetics and human health. Advances in genomics can accelerate genetic improvement of horticultural traits. However, genomics in horticultural crops remains challenging because horticultural crops often have complex genomes with large genome size, abundant repeats, high heterozygosity and/or ploidy. With the rapid development of high-throughput genomic technologies in the last two decades, about 200 horticultural genomes have been deciphered, but many more horticultural plant genomes are still enigmatic. In addition, some common problems have hindered horticultural genomic studies. For example, the unclear allele sequences and haplotype switch errors in assembly in some complex genome regions remain unresolved, although these regions may be associated with important traits such as selfing incompatibility.
To decipher such complex horticultural genomes, we need to develop novel computational methods to take advantage of state-of-the-art genomic technologies. We invite contributions, including original papers, reviews, and comments on the following subtopics:
- New resources of genomes, pan-genomes or genetic variations of horticultural crops.
- Integrative exploration of multi-omics data between genomics and other fields such as transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics and proteomics.
- Mutation analysis in horticultural plant genomes.
- Evolutionary analysis of horticultural genomes (and/or transcriptomes) of different species.
- Computational methods for broad interest in traits of horticultural genomes.
- Integrative tools/databases for horticultural genomic resources.
Horticultural crops play an important role in the lives of people as they provide various kinds of vegetables, fruits, ornamental plants and herbal medicines. Therefore, improving the traits of horticultural crops has important implications for environmental aesthetics and human health. Advances in genomics can accelerate genetic improvement of horticultural traits. However, genomics in horticultural crops remains challenging because horticultural crops often have complex genomes with large genome size, abundant repeats, high heterozygosity and/or ploidy. With the rapid development of high-throughput genomic technologies in the last two decades, about 200 horticultural genomes have been deciphered, but many more horticultural plant genomes are still enigmatic. In addition, some common problems have hindered horticultural genomic studies. For example, the unclear allele sequences and haplotype switch errors in assembly in some complex genome regions remain unresolved, although these regions may be associated with important traits such as selfing incompatibility.
To decipher such complex horticultural genomes, we need to develop novel computational methods to take advantage of state-of-the-art genomic technologies. We invite contributions, including original papers, reviews, and comments on the following subtopics:
- New resources of genomes, pan-genomes or genetic variations of horticultural crops.
- Integrative exploration of multi-omics data between genomics and other fields such as transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics and proteomics.
- Mutation analysis in horticultural plant genomes.
- Evolutionary analysis of horticultural genomes (and/or transcriptomes) of different species.
- Computational methods for broad interest in traits of horticultural genomes.
- Integrative tools/databases for horticultural genomic resources.
