Rubber grass genome: The only herb in plants that produce high molecular weight rubber to sequence the genome.

Natural rubber is one of the world's four largest industrial raw materials, with oil, steel and coal, with a total global consumption of 12.14 million tons in 2015 and a production value of approximately US$17 billion.
Brazil's tri-leaf rubber tree is the main source of natural rubber, due to the planting area restrictions, increased production costs, narrow genetic background and serious pests and diseases and other factors, rubber production gradually difficult to meet demand.
china is a large natural rubber consumption country, and Brazil's three-leaf rubber tree can be planted very little, resulting in China's external dependence has exceeded 80%.
the development and production of natural rubber alternative resources has important strategic significance and economic value.
rubber grass Taraxacum kok-saghyz (TKS), also known as Russian dandelion, is a perenniogenic double-body herb, root synthesis of high molecular weight of natural rubber and chrysanthemum, with a wide range of growth, natural rubber content, short growth cycle, relatively simple genomic and genetic transformation and gene editing is relatively easy, is considered the most likely alternative to the production of natural rubber cash crops and scientific research model plants.
countries around the world have set up natural rubber research programs, such as the United States "Excellence Program", the European Union "Pearl Project" and so on.
China's "Dandelion Rubber Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance" was also announced in 2015.
The Li Jiayang Research Group of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences independently assembled a high-quality rubber grass genome sketch with a size of 1.29Gb, containing more than 46,000 genes and up to 70% repeat sequences, using PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology.
rubber grass genome is also the only herb in the plant that can produce high molecular weight rubber to sequence the genome.
Through the comparative genomic study between rubber-producing plants and non-rubber-producing plants, the paper identified the rubber synthesis pathway and chrysanthemum synthesis pathway in rubber grass, and expounded the evolution of two important gene families, CPT/CPTL and REF/SRPP, during the extension of rubber chain.
, they found possible candidate regions in the rubber grass genome associated with self-intersecting decline.
the results mark the study of natural rubber synthesis with rubber grass as a model plant into the post-genome era, and will greatly accelerate the domestication of rubber grass from wild plants to cash crops, and promote the development of China's natural rubber industry.
the study was published online in the journal National Science Review.