2014/09/05 by France Denœud, Lorenzo Carretero‐Paulet, Alexis Dereeper +61 · 5 citations
Medicine · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Coffee research and impacts #Cocoa and Sweet Potato Agronomy #Plant Virus Research Studies
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1255274
openalex publication_date 2014/09/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Coffee is a valuable beverage crop due to its characteristic flavor, aroma, and the stimulating effects of caffeine. We generated a high-quality draft genome of the species Coffea canephora, which displays a conserved chromosomal gene order among asterid angiosperms. Although it shows no sign of the whole-genome triplication identified in Solanaceae species such as tomato, the genome includes several species-specific gene family expansions, among them N-methyltransferases (NMTs) involved in caffeine production, defense-related genes, and alkaloid and flavonoid enzymes involved in secondary compound synthesis. Comparative analyses of caffeine NMTs demonstrate that these genes expanded through sequential tandem duplications independently of genes from cacao and tea, suggesting that caffeine in eudicots is of polyphyletic origin.