How Science Is Helping Sweeten the Deal for Sweet Corn

Marcio Resende scouting sweet corn crops in Florida

What does the genomic sequencing of a supersweet corn variety mean for growers? UF/IFAS researcher Marcio Resende is on the case.
Photo courtesy of UF/IFAS

Sweet corn is a fan favorite food for many folks. The sweeter, the better. University of Florida Assistant Professor and sweet corn breeder Marcio Resende is all ears when it comes to this vegetable.

Resende recently led a team of fellow UF/IFAS researchers to sequence the genome of a type of supersweet corn. This was a first. Through his genome assembly work, Resende thinks this information can be used for novel breeding methods, as well as to learn more about the biology and history of sweet corn.

Advertisement

“This is expected to translate into better varieties for farmers and consumers,” Resende says.

For the study, published in Nature Communications, Resende and his colleagues used several technologies to reconstruct the sweet corn genome. By using these techniques, they learned the exact structure of the natural mutation of the gene that creates supersweet corn, and therefore its higher sugar content.

Top Articles
Have a Plan For Climate Change? Why Fruit Growers Need To Act Now

Researchers extracted DNA from a plant grown in the greenhouse and sequenced the genome, using a platform that reads DNA fragments of about 15,000 base pairs.

The genome has about 2 billion base pairs. To piece these sequenced fragments together, scientists used University of Florida’s supercomputer “HiPerGator,”according to Resende. In addition to bioinformatics, he and his team relied on two additional tools, known as Optical Mapping and Hi-C Mapping. They both helped unite fragments, resulting in a high-quality genome sequence.

Resende claims the new research has inspiration dating back almost 50 years. In the 1970s, UF/IFAS sweet corn breeder Emil Wolf developed ‘Staysweet’, one of the first supersweet hybrid varieties.

“We were now able to sequence the genome of a supersweet corn, which will help us to accelerate the development process of novel varieties,” Resende adds. “Moving forward, we will analyze the DNA of our current breeding lines and compare them against this genome to select which ones to move forward in the breeding process.”

1