Overview

The mango is a large evergreen arbor of the Anacardiaceae family. For the high nutritional value of its edible stone fruit, mango is widely cultivated home and abroad with a rich variety of cultivars, also known as ‘the king of tropical fruits’.

Geographical Distribution

Mango has a long history of cultivation, having been cultivated in India 4,000 years ago. In China, the earliest document of mango cultivation history can be traced back to the record of "Anbolo fruit, which was treasured in the world" in the Records of Western Regions of Great Tang Dynasty by Monk Xuanzang. It is generally recognized that mango was introduced into China after the return of Monk Xuanzang, and then rapidly spread to Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Foreign mango cultivation 90% concentrated in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia and other countries in Asia. In addition, it is also cultivated in the East and west of Africa, Tanzania and Zaire, Brazil and Mexico in the Americas, Florida and Hawaii in the United States. China's main mango production areas are Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Fujian, Taiwan and other provinces, among which the planting plans are in a reasonable mix and basically achieving a year-round supply. Among them, Baise Tiandong and Tianyang in Guangxi also issued the national title of "hometown of mango".

Application

• Edible use: As the reputation of "the king of tropical fruits", mango is juicy and tasty, and it can also be canned, salted for seasoning and fermented to make wine.
• Medicinal use: The rind of mango is used as a diuretic medicine. It is recognized that " all those who cross the sea will not vomit if they eat it" in Supplement to Compendium of Materia Medica. The kernel of the fruit is used to relieve a cough.
• Health care: Mango contains sugar, protein, crude fibre and rich vitamins, among which the precursor of vitamin A, carotene, is very high, which is rare in fruits. It is also high in essential trace elements (selenium, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, iron and so on).
• Industrial materials: The leaves and bark can be used as yellow dyes; the wood is hard and resistant to seawater, making it suitable for boats or furniture.
• Urban landscaping: The mango tree has a spherical, evergreen crown, thus it is a good choice for garden and roadside greening in the tropics.

Genome sequencing

The mango variety Alphonso is a traditional Indian cultivar. The Beijing Institute of Genome Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Tropical Crop Genetic Resources of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agriculture led the completion of its reference genome. The de novo assembly of the genome was based on single molecule subreads generated by the PacBio Sequel II platform, improved by a combination of paired-end and mate-paired short reads, and incorporated with Hi-C sequencing for scaffolding. The assembled scaffold was further anchored to a genetic map with 20 linkage groups. The final assembly consisted of 252 scaffolds with a total span of 392.9 Mb, scaffold N50 size of 17.6 Mb, contig N50 size of 3.5 Mb, and a total of 41,251 protein-coding genes were annotated.

The mango variety Tommy Atkins is from a relatively newly developed variety group originating in Florida, USA. The reference genome was completed under the leadership of the Center for Tropical Research and Education in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at the University of Florida. The reference genome was assembled de novo using a combination of short reads, NRGene De-Novo Magic, 10X Genomics long read sequencing, and a phased SNP map. A consensus assembly of haploid sequences, TA4, was generated with a total sequence length of 377 Mb containing 571 scaffolds and a scaffold N50 of 7,734,592 bp. 26,616 gene models and 30,344 transcripts were predicted on TA4.

The excellent cultivar of mango " Hong Xiang Ya" is grown in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China. A joint research team from the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, South China Agricultural University and the Southwest China Wildlife Germplasm Repository, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, completed its reference genome. The reference genome was obtained by single molecule real time sequencing (SMRT), Illumina sequencing technology and genetic mapping technology. The final assembly sequence of 367.06 Mb was anchored to 20 chromosomes with scaffold N50 up to 18.77 Mb. A total of 34,529 protein-coding genes were identified.

Reference

1.中国科学院中国植物志委员会. 中国植物志.第45卷[M]. 科学出版社, 1980.

2.Wang P, Luo Y, Huang J, et al. The genome evolution and domestication of tropical fruit mango. Genome Biol. 2020;21(1):60. [OpenLBID: OLB-PM-32143734]

3.Mango Genome Consortium, Bally ISE, Bombarely A, et al. The 'Tommy Atkins' mango genome reveals candidate genes for fruit quality. BMC Plant Biol. 2021;21(1):108. [OpenLBID: OLB-PM-33618672]

4.Wei Li, et al. SMRT sequencing generates the chromosome-scale reference genome of tropical fruit mango, Mangifera indica. bioRxiv. 2020.