Development of a composite core collection from 5,856 Sesame accessions being conserved in the Indian National...

A composite core collection (CCC) in sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) will help utilize genetic resources efficiently. This study reports, using genomics tools, a representative minimal set (CCC) that capture maximal genetic diversity from a set of 5,856 sesame accessions being conserved at the National Genebank (NGB) of the ICAR-NBPGR. The CCC will serve as a valuable resource for researchers and breeders to facilitate sesame improvement for traits such as yield, disease resistance, stress resilience, and nutritional content. Ultimately, this work contributes to the broader goal of improving sesame for an ever-increasing demand for vegetable oil, to meet our food security challenges.

This study presents ddRAD-seq data for a total of 5,856 sesame accessions that includes 2,496 accessions (a subset of 5,856 accessions) that was reported by us recently. Using next-generation sequencing (NGS) short-reads over 2.16 Terabases of sequence data were generated, with each sample averaging 1.2 million reads. The study identifies a set of 1,768 sesame accessions as the CCC that captures maximal diversity, genotypic and phenotypic. This will aid researchers in trait discovery, association studies, pre-breeding, and parental selection for complex traits viz., yield, disease resistance, stress resilience, and other economically important traits.