The giant diploid faba genome unlocks variation in a global protein crop

Increasing plant protein production is hampered by the lack of a cool-season legume equivalent to soybean. Faba bean (*Vicia faba* L.) has high yield potential but scarce genomic resources. This study reports a high-quality chromosome-scale assembly of the faba bean genome (13 Gb), expanded through retrotransposon and satellite repeat amplification. Genes and recombination are evenly dispersed, with substantial copy number variation. A targeted genotyping assay and genome-wide association analysis dissected the genetic basis of seed size and hilum color. These resources constitute a genomics-based breeding platform for faba bean, accelerating sustainable protein production.

Murukarthick Jayakodi, Agnieszka A. Golicz, Jonathan Kreplak, Lavinia I. Fechete, Deepti Angra, Petr Bednář, Elesandro Bornhofen, Hailin Zhang, Raphaël Boussageon, Sukhjiwan Kaur, Kwok Cheung, Jana Čížková, Heidrun Gundlach, Asis Hallab, Baptiste Imbert, Gabriel Keeble-Gagnère, Andrea Koblížková, Lucie Kobrlová, Petra Krejčí, Troels W. Mouritzen, Pavel Neumann, Marcin Nadzieja, Linda Kærgaard Nielsen, Petr Novák, Jihad Orabi, Sudharsan Padmarasu, Tom Robertson-Shersby-Harvie, Laura Ávila Robledillo, Andrea Schiemann, Jaakko Tanskanen, Petri Törönen, Ahmed O. Warsame, Alexander H. J. Wittenberg, Axel Himmelbach, Grégoire Aubert, Pierre-Emmanuel Courty, Jaroslav Doležel, Liisa U. Holm, Luc L. Janss, Hamid Khazaei, Jiří Macas, Martin Mascher, Petr Smýkal, Rod J. Snowdon, Nils Stein, Frederick L. Stoddard, Jens Stougaard, Nadim Tayeh, Ana M. Torres, Björn Usadel, Ingo Schubert, Donal Martin O'Sullivan, Alan H. Schulman, Stig Uggerhøj Andersen