About Ipomoea nil

The Japanese morning glory (Ipomoea nil) is a traditional floricultural plant in Japan. It belongs to the family Convolvulaceae, and is a climbing annual herb producing blue flowers. A number of its spontaneous mutations have been appeared since late Edo-period (beginning of the 19th century). The mutations related to floricultural traits have been used to breed various cultivars typified by Henka-Asagao. Even at present, Japanese people are affectionately familiar with morning glory as a plant that flowers in summer, and more than 1,500 cultivars are maintained by Kyushu University as a part of the National BioResource Project (NBRP).

I. nil is an ideal model plan for genetic studies because it is easy to cultivate, and shows high self-compatibility and numerous spontaneous mutations. After rediscovery of Mendel’s law, there was a surge in its genetic analysis conducted by Japanese researchers. In 1956, a genetic linkage map of I. nil was created, which was second only to that of maize in its level of detail. I. nil is a typical short-day plant as described in textbooks, and its photoperiodic flowering has been studied extensively. Even at present, I. nil is still actively studied, utilizing the plant’s characteristics and resources to analyze photoperiodic flowering, flower pigmentation, and flower and leaf development.

I. nil has 15 pairs of chromosomes (2n=30) with a total genome size of 750 Mb. In 2016, we reported its draft genome sequence corresponding to 98% of the genome as 3,416 scaffolds containing 42,783 predicted genes. Moreover, 91% of the sequence consisting of 321 scaffolds was compiled as 15 pseudo-chromosomes. With this morning glory genome browser, it is now possible to analyze the 3,416 scaffolds (Asagao_1.1) and the 15 pseudo-chromosomes with the 3,095 scaffolds not contained in the pseudo-chromosomes (Asagao_1.2), in addition to the circular genomes of chloroplasts and mitochondria.


What's new

  • 2017.2.1

    "Ipomoea nil Genome Project" website was released.

Assembly Information
Assembly ID Asagao_1.1
Assembly date 2016/09/01
WGS Project BDFN01
BioProject ID PRJDB4356
Provider NIBB
Statistical information
Total length 735,230,855 bp
Num. of scaffolds 3,418
Scaffold N50 2,880,368 bp
Num. of contigs 3,867
Contig N50 1,873,359 bp
GAP length 211,647