The chickpea (Cicer arietinum) is a legume belonging to the bean family (Fabaceae). It is a domesticated plant native to India and the Middle East that is now grown around the world. It is the second-most widely grown legume after the soybean (Glycine max), making it an important source of symbiotic nitrogen fixation and dietary protein as a fundamental food crop. Chickpeas also produce a high amount of folate, a vitamin that cannot be made by humans and must be obtained from diet. The chickpea genome is diploid with a genome size of 738 Mb.
Genome release:
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.2491
Varshney, R. K., Song, C., Saxena, R. K., Azam, S., Yu, S., Sharpe, A. G., ... & Millan, T. (2013). Draft genome sequence of chickpea (Cicer arietinum) provides a resource for trait improvement. Nature biotechnology, 31(3), 240.
Content written by Galyna Vakulenko Summer Intern 2018
