Format: ORAL

Le-Han Nguyen1, Doudou Kong1, Oliver Rupp2, Svent Griep2,Alexander Goesmann2, Annette Becker1

1 Institute of Botany, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany 2 Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany

One of the central goals of evolutionary research is to understand how changes in gene regulatory networks lead to the origin of novel, complex traits, or, in short: How do evolutionary novelties arise? Ranunculales are early branching eudicots that comprise extremely morphologically diverse species and they are special because several morphological novelties evolved repeatedly and novel floral traits emerged. I will introduce the RanOmics project, aimed at uncovering gene regulators modules required for the emergence of novel, often convergently emerging traits. We have sequenced the genomes in reference quality of several Ranunculales and the transcriptomes of several species from homologous tissues and comparable developmental stages. I will provide the state of the art of this project with the first comparative analyses of the genomes. The RanOmics project provides the genetic resources for the Ranunculales community and all researchers interested in studying comparative genomics, evolution of gene regulatory networks, and origin of novel traits.