Brassica rapa, Chinese cabbage, is an import addition to PLAZA 3.0 for several reasons. Brassica rapa is by itself an important crop for oilseed (vegetable oil) production. Additionally its phylogenetic proximity to other brassicaceae of agricultural importance, such as turnip, cabbage and rapeseed, is of interest. Finally, brassica species have an interesting genomic history with several recent whole genome duplications and hybridizations. The brassica rapa sequence is the first step to unraveling the details how such events shape plant genomes and how the genome behaves afterwards.

Publication:
The genome of the mesopolyploid crop species Brassica rapa.Nature Genetics 43, 1035-1039 (2011)