Format: ORAL

Matthew G. Johnson1 Chris Jackson2 Alexandre R. Zuntini3 Nan Hu1 Paul Bailey3 Felix Forest3 Norman J. Wickett4 William J. Baker3

1 Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA 2 Royal Botanical Gardens Victoria, Melbourne, Australia 3 Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, London, UK 4 Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, USA

Angiosperms353 has gained popularity both as informative single copy genes and universal probes for cost-effective target capture in high-throughput sequencing. With data from over 10,000 species and 60% of extant genera now represented in the Kew Tree of Life Explorer (treeoflife.kew.org), Angiosperms353 has become an important tool for phylogenetics and population genetics studies. However, several shortcomings of the original gene targets and associated probe sequences have led to poorer than average recovery of sequences in certain angiosperm groups. We seek to improve Angiosperms353 probes by using expanded resources of high-quality genome references in angiosperms and data generated by the Plant and Fungal Tree of Life (PAFTOL) project at RBG-Kew and the Genomes of Australian Plants (GAP) project at RBG-Victoria. For Angiosperms353v2, we expanded the targeted sequence of each gene to include coding regions not captured in the first version. We also improved the regions covered in Angiosperms353v1 by using kmediods clustering to select represented sequences at a per-exon level. We describe the in-silico testing of Angiosperms353v2 and associated resources, including curated clade-specific target files for use in gene recovery workflows. Our new probe design is intended to continue the success of Angiosperms353 with improved recovery and increased gene sequence length, thus enhancing future phylogenetic inference.