Genome and Tissue-Specific Transcriptome of the Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)
Feng H, Zhang J, Powell AF and others. Plant direct, March 2025.
Read the paper Free to read · doi:10.1002/pld3.70031
What this paper is about
The genome of tropical milkweed, assembled from a fifth-generation inbred line into 619 contigs with 98 percent anchored to its 11 chromosomes, together with RNA sequencing of individual tissues.
Tropical milkweed makes more cardiac glycosides than most species, which is why it was chosen. The genome gives other researchers a reference for working out how milkweeds make those compounds.
Summarised here from the abstract below. Not the authors’ words.
Abstract
Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) serves as a host plant for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) and other insect herbivores that can tolerate the abundant cardiac glycosides that are characteristic of this species. Cardiac glycosides, along with additional specialized metabolites, also contribute to the ethnobotanical uses of A. curassavica. To facilitate further research on milkweed metabolism, we assembled the 197-Mbp genome of a fifth-generation inbred line of A. curassavica into 619 contigs, with an N50 of 10 Mbp. Scaffolding resulted in 98% of the assembly being anchored to 11 chromosomes, which are mostly colinear with the previously assembled common milkweed (A. syriaca) genome. Assembly completeness evaluations showed that 98% of the BUSCO gene set is present in the A. curassavica genome assembly. The transcriptomes of six tissue types (young leaves, mature leaves, stems, flowers, buds, and roots), with and without defense elicitation by methyl jasmonate treatment, showed both tissue-specific gene expression and induced expression of genes that may be involved in cardiac glycoside biosynthesis. Expression of a CYP87A gene, the predicted first gene in the cardiac glycoside biosynthesis pathway, was observed only in the stems and roots and was induced by methyl jasmonate. Together, this genome sequence and transcriptome analysis provide important resources for further investigation of the ecological and medicinal uses of A. curassavica.
Abstract reproduced from the published paper, which is licensed CC BY. Copyright remains with the authors.
Milkweeds in this paper
- Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca
- Tropical Milkweed Asclepias curassavica
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author = {{Milkweed USA}},
year = {2026},
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